He asked whether animal genetics should be at the top of the list for funding or whether other aspects of the dairy and pastoral industries deserve priority attention.
“Is animal genetics a bottleneck in agriculture?” he asked.
The professor of animal science said he would preface his advice to Jersey cattle breeders on where to spend their research money by looking back 50 or 100 years.
“Much of our progress in genetics was piggy-backing on advances in other technologies such as reproductive technology.”
“Look at artificial insemination, sire proving and wide use of the top bulls. Consider computer power and our ability to do so much more with data.
“We get three billion pieces of information from cattle gene sequencing, but it is the computer power which allows us to store and manipulate.”
The science community and the research funders needed to accurately define what the dairy industry does.
“My definition is that it turns sunlight into food for humans,” he said.
“So firstly, only 14% of the sun’s energy is captured by grass in a paddock, and there may be ways that can be improved.
“Dairy farmers utilise 12-18 tonnes drymatter/ha/year from ryegrass-clover pastures, but maize grows in excess of 20t.
“New Zealand’s effort into the genetic improvement of ryegrass is very limited by our size and our budget, but the research and development in maize is huge in countries like the United States. And maize yields will continue to increase rapidly.””
Blair then examined each part of his own definition of a dairy cow – the self-motivated lawnmower with a fermentation vat. He said NZ dairy cows are harvesting close to their maximum intakes each day – 4-5% of their bodyweight.
“So maybe we have to increase the energy content of the feed, which again might suggest maize.”
Perhaps the fermentation vat didn’t need to be attached to four legs and a mouth?
“We already harness fermentation in the making of beer, and having an enclosed vat would help greatly with greenhouse gas emissions.”
As yet the rumen products could not be artificially turned into milk outside of the cow udder.
“Not at present, but the first artificial muscle has been grown as a beef replacement.”
Blair said the composition of milk also needed examination and it could be tinkered with. Feeding omega 3-rich diets to cows raised the level of docosahexaenoic acid to help brain development in children, and this is already being done in Canada.
“We can also tinker with the cow, but that will tend to kill our markets,” he said.
“The scientists that unravelled DNA or first achieved gene sequencing had no idea of all the purposes to which their work could be put.
“So my advice is to untangle all of these aspects to learn more about pasture systems, cows, rumens and milk and ask where genetics might be used to improve farmer profit.”
