Advances in research from the Farmers Forum

RESEARCH WRAP FARMERS FORUM

Get used to disruption

Changing times in dairying are here to stay, delegates at the DairyNZ Farmers Forum were told. Sheryl Haitana reports from the conference.

The dairy sector should talk to strangers to solve their issues around delivering a sustainable product to meet incoming environmental regulations.

Nanotechnologist Dr Michelle Dickinson addressed the DairyNZ Farmers Forum at Hamilton in April and encouraged the industry to talk to scientists and tech experts outside their usual circle because that’s where they could find solutions.

She said disruption is here to stay and businesses can’t get caught out by traditional linear thinking and just trying to improve on what has come before.

Farmers are pre-wired to repeat and optimise what they produced in last year’s harvest. But things are going to come in and disrupt the sector and products and solutions will take the industry by surprise and take it to new places, she said.

DairyNZ presented multiple research projects at the forum, from monitoring new methane inhibitor products to gene editing for breeding heat resistant cows.

DairyNZ scientist Elena Minnee says the industry has solutions at hand to reduce methane emissions by 10%, but to achieve the 47% target reduction by 2050 there needs to be significant development in tools and practices onfarm.

DairyNZ is working with other research organisations on solutions from the five key focus areas to address methane; farm systems, feed, genetics, vaccines and inhibitors. It is also working to oversee products coming to market to ensure they are safe and beneficial for farmers.

METHANE INHIBITORS

Methane inhibitor technologies are close to market, which could get rapid uptake and provide significant reductions in methane, particularly for overseas producers.

Inhibitors are chemical compounds that are either naturally derived or synthetically made that suppress the activity of the bugs in the rumen that create methane.

Inhibitor options could be mixed into feed or a slow release capsule. The trick with a capsule is making it effective enough without being the size of a rocket, she said.

Some claims say that inhibitors can reduce methane anywhere from 30 to 90% reduction in methane emissions per unit of feed eaten, in some cases without any reduction in productivity. But the actual effect and impact on emissions, the cow and the milk are yet to be determined.

“The cynic in me thinks there are some catches and it’s our job to find out what they are,” Elana said.

There is one catch they know of in that the methane inhibitors need to be present in the ruman constantly to have the most effect.

DairyNZ’s role is to screen the products coming to market to see what will be the most effective and that they are safe and there is no antagonistic effect, she said.

“It’s got to work without compromising production. There is a chance of snake oil companies getting into this market.”

DairyNZ is engaging early to look at things like product residues, milk composition and to investigate if these inhibitors affect the nutritional values of dairy products.

The inhibitors also have to be implementable onfarm and be auditable so that it can be recognised if farmers are using these products to reduce methane, she said.

Dr Michelle Dickinson, Nanogirl, spoke at the DairyNZ Farmers Forum, telling farmers to get used to disruption in the sector.

DairyNZ scientist Elena Minnee says the industry has solutions at hand to reduce methane emissions by 10%, but to achieve the 47% target reduction by 2050 there needs to be significant development in tools and practices onfarm.

GENOMIC SELECTION applied and evaluated in a breeding context

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F1 progeny herbage yield (g/plot)

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Base population Conventional breeding Genomic selection

Left: Use of genomic selection has the potential to give larger increases in herbage yield compared with the base population and conventional breeding. Above: Using gene editing with genes from lighter Highland cattle can lead to offspring suffering less from heatstress, without compromising breeding worth.

PASTURE GENOMICS

In terms of pasture species, the future lays with using genomic selection, AgResearch team leader resilient agriculture Marty Faville said.

An AgResearch and DairyNZ co-funded study on using DNA to predict trait values showed the potential to speed up the selection process and improve accuracy of selection, he said.

For perennial ryegrass, to assess accuracy for yield, it normally takes two to four years of evaluation. With genomics, there is the ability to predict selection from a six week old seedling.

“Genomics can increase that genetic gain by speeding things up and it enables us to improve accuracy of selection.”

Genomic selection can be used for most of the Dairy Forage Index, including yield, nutritive value and some aspects of persistence.

The study showed a 38% increase in herbage yield in ryegrass using genomic selection, ahead of the 21% improvement from a conventional breeding approach.

“It’s highly promising and it has given seed companies a lot of encouragement to use this technology.”

The benefits show that the genetic gain in herbage yield in ryegrass using the conventional breeding situation is 0.7% - at best. That could improve to 2% using genomics. An Abacus Bio study showed that the value of pasture to dairy today is $14 billion.

“If genomic selection is implemented by 2026, by 2040, it could add another $0.4b to $1.3b of value.”

DairyNZ scientist Elena Minnee

GENE EDITING

The topic of gene editing was also raised with a PhD student’s study on the potential to breed lighter coloured cows to have more heat resistance.

Swati Jivanji works at LIC and is a PhD student at Massey University. Her PhD looked at the genetics of coat colour in dairy cattle and how these traits influence animal welfare and the possibility of using gene editing to introduce animal welfare relevant traits.

She looked at taking a PMEL gene from the light coloured Highland cattle and placing that into the DNA strand of a Holstein Friesian cow to reduce heat stress.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, they can unwind a cow’s DNA and cut and replace a piece of DNA with a more desirable trait.

Swati studied the genome sequence of two AgResearch gene-edited calves which were born recently, and three non gene edited calves and found there were no undesirable effects from the gene editing.

This gene editing would be able to breed a lighter coloured cow without any negative impact on Breeding Worth (BW) or compromising the animal.

It would take many generations to improve BW if you breed a dairy cow to a Highland cow to get the light colour gene.

“With gene editing you get it within a single generation at no cost to BW,” Swati said.