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VistaMilk Update
from IHFA Journal - Winter 2021
by IHFA
Vista Milk
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Update from the Vistamilk Research Center by Professor Donagh Berry
VistaMilk is a €40m research center co-funded by Science Foundation Ireland, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and over 50 industry partners including the Irish HolsteinFriesian Association.
The long-term strategy of the VistaMilk Centre is to be an agent of growth for the Irish dairy industry by being a world leader in fundamental and translational research for, inter alia, precision pasture-based digital dairying and the utilisation of focussed and commercially sustainable technology both upstream and downstream of the entire food chain.
The vision of the VistaMilk Centre is to be a world leader in the Agri-Food technology sector through innovation and enhanced sustainability across the dairy supply chain, positively impacting the environment, animal well-being and the health of consumers. This will be achieved by greatly improving the soil to gut supply chain connectivity thereby improving resource efficiency, better meeting consumers’ expectations, and improving profitability and resilience. The opportunities that arise at the interface between Agri-Food and digital technologies will be the basis for the competitive advantage. One flagship project in VistaMilk includes the quantification of how much carbon is actually being captured (i.e., sequestered) by Irish soils and how soil/pasture management influences this. Ireland now has equipment units to quantify this sequestration potential in an area greater than the whole of Africa and probably has the greatest density of such units than any other country globally.
The potential outcome of this research is huge in mitigating the stated net carbon emissions of agriculture as a whole, not just dairy. VistaMilk boasts the ownership of the only machines in Ireland that are being used to measure methane emissions in grazing dairy cows.
These machines are being used to firstly quantify the baseline of methane output of grazing Irish dairy cows; the other objectives are to evaluate feed additives to reduce methane as well as quantify the potential of breeding to reduce methane emissions.
Green Breed machine in action measuring methane at a Teagasc Research Farm.
VistaMilk has already tested several different feed additives with none demonstrating a reduction in methane emissions in grazing cows. Of greater impact, however, was the realisation that the level of methane emitted from grazing dairy cows is considerably less than previously thought (and used in national calculations). This was based on a relatively limited group of animals and only over one year but these preliminary results are really promising. Also of note was the significant genetic variability in methane emission per cow.
Albeit just based on one year of data, the daily methane emissions of high EBI cows is the same as low EBI cows; however, the milk solids yield is 10% greater in the higher EBI cows meaning that they are actually more carbon efficient in producing milk solids. Again a really powerful result, but importantly with facts and figures to back this up.
VistaMilk is also digging deeper into linear scores of Irish dairy cows focusing on their usefulness but also their trends nationally over the past two decades. Analysis of genetic trends on almost 3 million Holsten-Friesians revealed obvious trends for several traits over the past 20 years in Irish dairy cows.
Results indicate Holstein-Friesians have progressively become shorter in stature as well as shallower (i.e., body depth) and less angular; the reduction in genetic merit for stature score since the year 2004 was, however, only observed in non-herdbook registered cows while the reducing score in body depth (i.e., narrower) and angularity (i.e., less angular) was approximately twice as fast in non-herdbook registered heifers as it was in herdbook-registered heifers.
Genetic merit for locomotion in non-herdbook registered animals has deteriorated over the 20-year period while the foot angle over that period is becoming lower; no such trends were observed for the herdbook-registered animals.
Large differences both in the trends themselves, but also the mean genetic merit, for udder traits existed when comparing herdbook-registered calves versus non-registered calves.
Given the growing interest in feed intake and efficiency globally, also examined was the usefulness of linear type traits to predict feed intake in grazing dairy cows. This had never been previously explored in grazing animals although relationships were estimated in cows fed in confinement. More importantly though, what had never been investigated in any population was the usefulness of these linear scores in predicting feed intake where cow live weight data already existed.
A genetic evaluation was undertaken using linear scores and grass feed intake of research cows. While linear scores provided some information in predicting genetic merit for feed intake, once cow live-weight data existed, the additional usefulness of the linears was low.
As cow longevity improves, the hypothesis is that good conformation will become a limiting factor either directly or indirectly through it associations with cow health traits such as lameness and mastitis. To date, all reported associations between cow conformation and longevity was limited to cows who generally only lived three lactations; this is generally because they were culled due to infertility.
Ireland, in particular, has a generally older population of cows which have been exposed to often challenging conditions (e.g., walking) all their life.
What is currently therefore being investigated is the association between cow conformation and survival in older parity cows. The expectation is that cow conformation is a more important determinant of survival to the next lactation for fifth and older parity cows than it is for first parity cows.
In all, VistaMilk is attempting to positively impact the environment, animal well-being and the health of consumers through responsible and sustainable science-based solutions.
. BALLYSIMON ROAD, LIMERICK
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