It’s not an easy climate in northern Victoria these days to get dairy research funded and undertaken in the region, particularly now that Agriculture Victoria has largely reduced its research and service capacity in the space.
To overcome these limitations, senior lecturer in livestock nutrition and grazing management Paul Cheng, at the University of Melbourne’s Dookie College, Murray Dairy’s executive officer and strategic projects manager Amy Fay and Murray Dairy’s research and innovation coordinator Yvette Williams have joined forces.
The fruitful relationship between the two teams was established six years ago with a strong support from former Murray Dairy CEO Jenny Wilson, and it is now providing a local solution to declining funding across the board that is effectively and efficiently driving relevant outcomes to our local dairy and forage industries.
Four years ago, Murray Dairy obtained a grant from the Federal Government under the Murray-Darling Basin Economic Development Program to undertake research around forage cropping for dairy production systems.
Under the Fodder for the Future project (https://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/resource-repository/2024/01/10/fodder-for-the-future), research providers delivered forage cropping trials around the region, including the University of Melbourne at Dookie College.
This project provided valuable insight into quality and yield of key winter cereal and summer forages for dairy consumption, and the associated agronomic challenges and opportunities for growing fodder in the Murray region.
The dataset generated from this project has also been used by Paul’s team, with a Victorian Drought Hub Agriculture Innovation Grant, to model enteric (that is, cow-generated) methane output and intensity, when the quality of hay in the diet was varied. (Go to: https://vicdroughthub.org.au/news-events/media-releases/release/fodder-project-looks-at-dairy-and-reduced-ghg-emissions)
The collaboration is providing a broader understanding of conserved forage-based dairy production systems.
This is particularly valuable as many businesses in the region consider the impacts of changing feedbase systems into the future.
Despite dairy research funding declining in the space, the two teams again collaborated to secure multi-million dollar funding from the fodder industry for a long-term project to explore the contribution value of oaten hay to dairy cow diets.
The project outputs will help the production of high-quality hay which will benefit both dairy producers and forage growers.
Additionally, the project will assist Australia’s continued access to the growing international oaten hay market.
Another key benefit being realised is the development and training of students.
Murray Dairy is assisting the support of two University of Melbourne PhD students who are investigating aspects of digestion of conserved cereal forages and how that impacts dairy production.
The collaboration between the university and Murray Dairy means the research can target topics of interest to the local industry.
Also, the students have the opportunity to be exposed to the more practical side of the dairy industry through attending Murray Dairy events and can then get a better understanding of how their research relates to practical outcomes.
Murray Dairy has also hosted undergraduate and master’s degree students for an internship, where the students get to see how the organisation operates and undertake a small project.
This provides the students with valuable work experiences and builds the capacity of the local industry as students seek out employment opportunities.
Both organisations continue to look for areas where they can collaborate and drive research outcomes that are relevant to the local industry.