UK News March 2011

March 2011

Welcome from Robert Hassall (LIC UK General Manager)

In this issue:

 DNA—The new frontier in genetics I have just returned from a holiday in New Zealand and it was quite a shock adjusting to  Milkbench+  Staff Updates the difference in climate between the two countries ‐ +25 in New Zealand; ‐2 when I  Out-wintering Open Day arrived back in the UK in late February.  Devon Open Day

As I write this, New Zealand is coming to terms with an earthquake which has caused loss  Grazing Systems Presentation of life and property in Christchurch, in the South Island. The company has a base there but, thankfully, our staff and their families were unhurt although, the closeness of the community, means that no‐one is immune from loss.

The UK clients I’ve spoken to since my return confirm that calving is going well to date, with sufficient feed on farm although a rise in temperature would help promote grass growth.

I’ve also heard that spring isn’t the only thing in the air – and that our competitors have once again been on the ground spreading ‘tall stories’ As a manager of a genetics company in the UK I am disappointed to get feedback that representatives from other companies are misinforming customers and in general UK Farmers.

The misleading statements being made are:

1. claims about the ranking of LIC sires within EBI 2. statements that LIC manipulates the BW rankings in NZ.

Dealing with the EBI statement, the facts speak for themselves – 47 of the top 50 EBI herds in Ireland use predominantly LIC sires.

When you consider that this ranking was achieved with the use of ‘old genetics’ just think what’s possible with the new LIC genetics on offer to Northern Hemisphere farmers. It’s also worth noting that LIC/Eurogene has 13 of the top 40 bulls ranked on EBI.

The second statement is absolutely false ‐ BW is a profit based index managed by New Zealand Animal Evaluation Ltd (NZAEL), a subsidiary of DairyNZ Ltd, for the benefit of the NZ dairy farmer. Each year in February NZAEL publishes weightings based on the economic / breeding information it has to hand. LIC has no control over the weightings included in the index. The simple reason LIC has so many bulls ranked at the top of any breeding list is due to the breeding programme it has in place.

New Bulls for 2011 I am delighted to advise that a new crop of DNA bulls have been drafted into the EU centre and production is well underway. The new team includes many of the very best 2009 born bulls that were used in the LIC Sire Proving scheme and the Premier Sires DNA team in late 2010. Ideally, we wanted a selection of these to be available for supply in late spring 2011 but quarantine restrictions mean this is now unlikely.

Our success is selling you less Our aim is, in the long term, to sell you less semen per herd member. This will be achieved via the improved fertility your herd will achieve by using LIC genetics. The impact of this is you will need less semen to get your cows in calf, allowing you to invest in increasing herd size, improving infrastructure or just better living.

Best Regards,

DNA – the new frontier in dairy genetics

LIC’s Genomics Research Leader, Dr Richard Spelman said, decades before the discovery of the double helix structure, it was known that genetic material or traits were passed from parents to progeny, but not how.

“Dairy farmers and LIC had been making breeding decisions based on physical appearance (conformation) and milk production measured through herd testing for 10 to 15 years before the discovery of the DNA structure, selecting animals genetically superior in different and desirable traits.

“But DNA is the ‘black box’ that contains the vast majority of important information.”

LIC began investing in biotechnology in 1993 and was one of the first, of a very few companies to commit to this type of research, so at the time went way out on limb ‐ investing several million dollars each year and uncertain of how it would realise a return on investment, but the investment was made, and it’s paid off.

Richard Spelman said when DNA technology was initially introduced for use in bovines it cost between $2 and $2.50 to genotype just one or two marker variations in the bovine animal.

“Almost overnight our ability to identify markers jumped to 10,000; equally significantly the cost to do this dropped to just one or two cents per marker.

“The advances we’d made meant, a couple of years later in December 2007, that we could identify 50,000 markers in the bovine DNA. And now, in 2010, we expect to get a new panel which will allow us to identify approximately 750,000 markers.”

“So over five years the ability to identify markers within the bovine genome has jumped from 10,000 to 750,000 ‐ a dramatic improvement in the quality of information with very little change in costs per panel.

“Markers are spread across three billion base pairs and the huge increase in identifiable markers enables us, with an even greater degree of accuracy, to identify the gene responsible for variations – for example in protein percentage.”

DNA markers are not always the gene of interest, but markers that are close to the gene itself can be used as a surrogate.

‘With a smaller number of markers we have a lesser degree of accuracy as we are identifying markers potentially further away from the actual gene of importance; we are not fully equipped with the full story for identifying important genes.

“By increasing the density of markers to 750,000 we have a greater degree of reliability and ability to identify markers close to the important gene.

“We can select an animal, evaluate its breeding worth by using the panel of 750,000 markers and provide 55%‐65% reliability compared to 80%‐85% reliability for daughter proven.

“A bull that young, with no DNA profile would provide only a 30‐35% reliability.

“By identifying which DNA patterns produce superior desirable traits, we can take a blood/tissue sample, look at an animal’s genetic profile and identify whether or not it is a superior animal.

“DNA technology is adding significant accuracy to evaluations, so much so that bulls can now be used as one year olds, therefore increasing the rate of genetic gain by 30% to 40%; in the past we had to wait five years until sires were daughter proven.”

In 2008 LIC commercially launched DNA Proven genetics to the market and not surprisingly it has been heralded as the biggest advance in genetics since artificial breeding was developed more than 50 years earlier.

“Utilising DNA technology, HAZAEL VA RAZZLER‐ET S2F (a son of VALDEN HI APPLAUSE‐ET S2F) with a BW of 337/64 was eligible as a one‐year‐old to join the 2010 DNA Proven Premier Sires team; under traditional Daughter Proving farmers would have to wait until 2014 before introducing his genetics to their herd.

“We are currently genotyping a few thousand animals, but plan to increase this to between 15,000 and 20,000 animals.

“With the introduction of the higher density 750,000 SNP panel and by screening a larger number of animals reliability will increase to approximately 65%, however, we are hopeful that figure will be higher, and we expect to see this within the next 12 months.”

In the middle of 2010 LIC will start sequencing DNA from a number of bulls important to the New Zealand dairy industry and instead of having 750,000 variations mapped, the company will have between 10 and 15 million DNA variations on a selection of animals.

“Eventually every bull in the DNA Proven team may be sequenced before it is sold commercially – the speed at which we are up‐taking and utilising the science of DNA is amazing.”



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Staff Updates Tim Nixon is moving to Animax after six years of great and often humorous service at LIC. Tim will be greatly missed and the team at LIC and all his clients send him their very best wishes. There will, no doubt, be chances to catch up with Tim at shows this summer.

Udo Fuehrer, who has recently joined LIC UK as Area Manager for Gloucester/East Dorset/South Wiltshire, moved to New Zealand from Germany when he was 15. After qualifying as a joiner he started his career in dairy farming. Udo has experience of contract milking and share milking and bought his first dairy farm near Dunedin 28 years ago. He built up to 850 cows on three units before selling up and buying a beef and sheep unit.

Udo has experience working as an AI technician and sales consultant for LIC in New Zealand and became National Sales Manager for Deer Improvement Ltd, a subsidiary of LIC. His move to the UK means we can tap into his wealth of understanding and experience in profitable dairy farming genetics.

Udo’s wife Leigh Anne Fuehrer has also joined LIC as an AI Technician.

Out‐wintering Open Day

Out‐wintering was the topic covered by an LIC and DairyCo organised open day held at Fardre Farm, St George, Abergele in early January. The event, which took place by kind permission of Mr and Mrs Henry Morgan and Mr Gareth Williams, was a follow up to the successful open day held at the farm in the autumn.

Over 40 farmers attended from across North Wales and Cheshire and they were split into two groups for the following sessions:

Workshop 1: Farm walk to view cows and fodder beet crop with Barry Ward (LIC) and Gareth Williams The groups were able to see that the cows were in very good form, clean with excellent body condition scores. Some farmers thought that they were looking in far better condition and cleaner than cows indoors on straw and silage.

Barry Ward demonstrated how to measure the fodder beet crop and give an accurate dry matter tonnage per hectare in order to help budget for feed rationing. It was calculated that the Fardre Farm crop this year was bumper with 21 tonnes DM of roots per Ha.

Gareth Willams talked about growing a fodder beet crop from ploughing and seeding to sprays and fertilizer. He stressed that fodder beet, while being an expensive crop to grow per Ha, when managed correctly to get reasonably high yields, is a feed that is very low cost per tonne. He explained that 45 square bales of haylage were placed in rows (per Ha) on the fields to provide the cows with a good fibre source to balance the fodder beet.

The beet was fed using an electric fence that was moved by between 6 inches and a foot per day. Cattle ring feeders were not used and the electric fence was just moved over the bales every day. Cows had full access to minerals through the water supply.

Workshop 2: Out‐wintering planning options / feed budgeting with Kathryn George (LIC) and Henry Morgan Kathryn George (LIC Pasture to Profit Consultant) spoke of planning an out‐wintering system and evaluating a feed budget based on how many cows to winter, how long, feed quantities eaten, and what feeds to use. The different types of feed crops was discussed, including fodder beet, kale, stubble turnips, rape and a rape hybrid such as Swift. All crops were then looked at in detail, firstly with actual feed analysis; Dry Matter yields and Dry Matter tonnages, and then actual costs per hectare and costs per tonne were calculated. Fodder beet came out on top with the lowest costs per dry matter tonne but the highest cost per Ha to grow.

Both groups then came together at the end of the event for a discussion. Many thanks go to Mr and Mrs Henry Morgan and Mr Gareth Williams of Fardre Farm for hosting such an interesting event.

Devon Open Day In late January 90 farmers, managers and herdsman travelled to Stanterton Farm, Washfield, near Tiverton, to a LIC farm open day held in conjunction with Herd Homes from New Zealand and HSBC Bank.

At the event, held at the kind invitation of Julian Ayre and Mat Heard, farmers got a chance to join the cows in the Herd Home constructed on the farm and witness the cosy draft free environment of this novel plastic clad building for themselves. The envi‐ ronmental benefits of a contained manure store and the easy to manage building compliant with the requirements of NVZ regula‐ tions were explained by Tom Pow (Herd Homes director) who had travelled from New Zealand to meet with UK dairy farmers.

Kathryn George, an LIC Farm consultant, joined Mat Heard to explain how his share milking agreement with Julian Ayre is helping him and his wife Christiana build their equity in a portion of the herd and start them on the ladder to their own dairy herd.

The topic generated a lot of interest as share milking, which is a regular concept in New Zealand where many of the country’s large and successful dairy farmers owe their origins to share milking , is hardly known in the UK.

HSBC Agriculture manager Jeff Souch and his colleagues explained how they looked after the “urge” financial needs of their dairy farming customers and stressed the importance of properly structuring farm business finances to guard against movements in interest rates and currency values. They happily fielded questions leading to discussion on topics such as the benefits of receiving payments in Euros.

Further discussion continued over a cup of hot soup in the barn in a truly international farming style.

The day was enjoyable and hugely informative and we are grateful to Julian, Mat and all the Stanterton staff for their help and cooperation in ensuring the day ran so well.

Grazing Systems Presentations by Dr John Roche

LIC and DairyCo have joined forces to bring Dr John Roche, managing director and principle consultant of Down to Earth Advice Ltd, from New Zealand during early spring to speak to dairy producers at a series of events across the country.

Dr Roche is known for his considerable ability to adapt grazing systems to different climates and situations. On his tour he will be discussing the key profit drivers for grazing systems. He will be looking at optimum stocking rates, grazing management and cow nutrition as well as suitable genetics for grazing systems. Dr Roche will also discuss milk production and fertility responses to supplementation.

Dr Roche holds an Honours degree in Agricultural Science, a Masters in grazing management and farm systems and a PhD in dairy cow nutrition. He is Principle Scientist of Animal Science at DairyNZ, (New Zealand’s farmer owned research, extension and education company) and an Adjunct Professor of Animal Science at Lincoln University in New Zealand. In addition to holding science research positions in Australia and Ireland, Dr Roche was also a founding partner in pasture‐based dairy farms in SE Missouri.

His company motto is ‘Science into Practice’, with his advice proven in science and road tested in commercial farm settings.

Dr Roche will be speaking at the following venues –

Monday 28th March 7.30pm – Open Meeting with Piers Badnell ‐ The Meadow Room, Cricklade House Hotel, Common Hill, Cricklade, Wilts. SN6 6HA – To book into this meeting please call Piers Badnell on 01989 567579 or email piers.badnell@dairyco.ahdb.org.uk

Wednesday 30th March, 7pm – Open Meeting with Jo Speed ‐ Allerton Court Hotel, Darlington Road, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, DL6 2XF – To book into this meeting please call Jo Speed on 0191 520 8498 or email joanne.speed@dairyco.ahdb.org.uk

Thursday 31st March, 11am – Open Meeting with Karen Lancaster ‐ Garstang Country Hotel and Golf Club, Bowgreave Drive, Garstang, Lancashire. PR3 1YE – To book in please call Karen Lancaster on 01524 781750 or email Karen.lancaster@dairyco.ahdb.org.uk