Animal improvement measured by Breeding Worth (BW) was already contributing $30/ha/year to farm profit and the high FCE trait could add a further 10% or $3/ha/year “additive and cumulative”, DairyNZ’s strategy and investment leader for productivity Dr Bruce Thorrold said.
About a third of every farmer levy dollar funding DairyNZ is spent on research and development and Thorrold presented highlights to farmers at the annual forum at Mystery Creek in early May. As well as the FCE project the work to improve DairyNZ’s Forage Value Index and an autumn grazing trial to reduce nitrogen leaching were featured.
High FCE cows are 4% more efficient in converting feed – basically eating less feed for the same production – and the trait is independent of BW evaluations where cows are selected to produce more by eating more, Thorrold said.
“Now we have proof of concept we are working on how we will deliver the trait to the industry in a partnership with the AI companies. The current thinking is that this will be by testing the young bulls in the feeding facilities at Hawera to identify the best and calculate breeding values (BV) for these young bulls.
“If the BVs are sufficiently reliable then FCE can be included in BW. The best bulls, with high BW, can then be used immediately in the industry,” he said.
Ongoing research would ensure the cows were becoming more efficient and that there were no effects on fertility or other traits over several generations.
While the use of FCE has been widespread in feedlot industries where individual animal intake was easily measured, for a dairy application a technique was developed to replicate eating behaviour on pasture.
Genetic gain is also motivating improvements to DairyNZ’s Forage Value Index that calculates the economic value to farmers of various ryegrass cultivars.
“Right now this is based on (grass) yield but will over time include quality, persistency and clover balance.”
Further investment is being spurred by initial results showing the best plants today are worth about $600/year in farm profit compared to the poorest cultivars on the market.
“DairyNZ is planning on investing with government, AgResearch, Dairy Australia and the seed industry to further improve FVI and accelerate the rate of plant genetic gain.
“For the last 12 months we have been trialling onfarm data collection on cultivar performance to mimic herd testing and this will be expanded this coming year to over 30 farms across the country.”
Thorrold said the FVI was offering plant breeders a target to aim for using a wide range of plant breeding tools, including GM and genomic selection.
“The seed industry, through NZ Plant Breeders Research Association, has increased the amount of data being collected in their independent national forage variety trials with quality (metabolisable energy) and persistency data becoming available in the next few years.”
An FVI for perennial grasses was launched two years ago, at www.dairynzfvi.co.nz , and last year an FVI for annual ryegrasses was added.
A continuing area of research investment is the Pastoral 21 programme to develop farm management systems to boost productivity while lessening environmental impacts. Previous work at DairyNZ tested the use of off-pasture facilities and on-off grazing to capture urine and recycle it onto pastures, but these systems had not made a big impact on nitrogen leaching despite the supportive theory, he said.
“The key to unlocking the effectiveness of off-pasture systems came in the research work done by Massey University and AgResearch that showed that the urine patches that were deposited in autumn from February to May were the dominant sources of nitrogen leaching.”
Previous studies assumed it was the May-July period that was critical but the new understanding has resulted in a farmlet trial with on-off grazing starting in February and, “early results indicating a reduction of leaching in the 30-40% range”.
“This is coming from a combination of factors including lower nitrogen inputs and higher genetic merit cows, but it’s believed that the timing of the on-off grazing is the dominant effect.”
Thorrold said the reduction in nitrogen leaching had come at a cost with production and profit being slightly reduced, down 2-5% compared with benchmark conventional systems. But the work, which will continue for two more years, will provide farmers a range of options to increase nutrient use efficiency.
It’s planned to increasingly involve commercial farms in evaluating nitrogen reduction methods.
