Dr Charlotte Reed is a DairyNZ scientist working across a range of projects, including environmental risk indicators and mitigations, heat stress in dairy cows and making the most of cow wearables. Charlotte has a background in reproductive physiology and completed a PhD at Victoria University of Wellington on the impact of oocyte quality on dairy
Dr. Amelia Almeida is committed to advancing sustainable ruminant production systems and enhancing feed efficiency while minimizing environmental impact. Dedicated to fostering innovation and resilience in the next generation of animal scientists at Massey University. Her current research focuses on measuring and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in ruminant production. Amelias mission is to empower students
During this session David covered the indirect and direct options for mitigating enteric methane. Indirect options include improving feed quality and animal health for improved animal efficiency and reduction in GHG . Direct interventions act directly in the rumen to reduce methane and include options such as methane inhibitors , vaccines, feed composition and plant
Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with a product, system or service. In this session, Andre covered what different components make up an LCA and talked about the importance of accounting for full impacts as when making changing to practices one boundary may make the change
Kirsty gave an overview of heat stress, measuring and mitigating heat stress and the new research in heat stress within NZ. In the summer of 2023 Dairy NZ carried out a trial reviewing heat stress, and while this was one of the wettest summer in over a decade, there was significant data including high wind
Dr. Marjan Sprock, a registered and practising vet on the west coast, showcased a case study and the process in which she went through to diagnose a severe mycotoxin challenge. This step by step encounter was used as a case study to show the symptoms that arose, and the process taken to review and diagnose
Helwi presented a piece of work he has been a part of that used modelling to look into environmental impact of grazing dairy systems and their profitability across a number of different scenarios. The same farm parameters were used for each scenario but with cow size, genetic potential and concentrate inputs varied across the scenarios
MPI winter cropping update
Emerging sustainable options for winter cropping
Gary discussed three methodologies currently being worked on as mitigation strategies for methane reduction: Genetics Certain sheep have been identified as having low methane emisions. These are also sheep whtat are low yielding so there is a trade-off with performance. This is explained that lower performance comes from lower VFA production so less energy for
