Artifical Breeding - LIC

1. LIC: Artificial breeding - The process from semen collection and quality control to detecting ovulating cows to artificially inseminating the cow.

Advantages for Artifical breeding(AI)

•  increased efficiency of bull usage
• increased potential of genetic selection
• increased safety for animals and farmers
• Decreased costs
• Reduced animal disease transmission

Disadvantages for AI

• more labor intentive
• detection of correct status for conception is responsibility of farmer not bull
• risk of failure in transport and storage
• reduces gene pool in a herd level, nationally 
• un thawing 
• poor AI technician (human error)

Collecting Semen from bulls

Semen is collected from a bull using a teaser animal (usually a steer or another bull) and an artificial vagina.  

Semen should be evaluated grossly for abnormal appearance. The presence of small "clots" or blood can indicate such conditions as seminal vesiculitis.

Parameter	Normal Values
Ejaculate volume	5 ml (range 1-15 ml)
Sperm concentration	1200 million/ml (range 300-2500 million/ml)
Total sperm per ejaculate	Typically 4-5 billion
Progressive motility	Greater than 30%
Morphology	Greater than 70% normal

Semen is then examined under the microscope for concentration, morphology and motility.

Semen is stored in special tubes called straws, 

Which are then stored in liquid nitrogen. (-196 degrees C) This prevents deterioration and biological quality. 

Artificially inseminating a cow

Effects of excess nitrogen on waterways

Nitrogen A chemical element that is the most abundant uncombined element in Earth’s atmosphere and occurs in all organisms. To be used by plants and animals, nitrogen must be fixed from the atmosphere and converted to ammonium (NH4) or nitrites (NO2-) and nitrates (NO3-). 

Nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) is an important plant fertiliser but it is highly water soluble so it leaches through soils very easily and reaches waterways. Sources of NO3-N include inorganic fertiliser, septic tanks and leaking sewerage systems.

Nitrate can also enter waterways from the nitrification of the ammonia in animal waste. 

The main ways that nutrients end up in water from diffuse pollution is through leaching and runoff. Nitrogen makes its way to water mainly through leaching which occurs when the plant cover cannot take up all the nitrogen so it moves down past the shallow root zone and through the soil. The nitrogen eventually moves into water, either groundwater storage areas or laterally into streams and then lakes and estuaries. The main form of nitrogen leaching is from cow urine because it occurs in small concentrated patches that the pasture cannot take up.

Nitrogen itself is only harmful to humans at very high concentrations (11.3mg/l)

Nitrate has ecosystem consequences at much lower levels than when it becomes unsafe to drink.  Ecosystem effects can start to occur at levels below 1 mg/l in water.

Nitrogen is toxic to fish at far lower levels than it is toxic to humans.

Too many nutrients (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) in rivers and lakes cause unwanted plants (weeds and algae) to grow in excessive amounts which form into mats of slimy growth and soupy, green, smelly water.

 Excess nutrients cause growths of algal mats like this from the Oroua River.

So an overabundance of weed growth in water can cause oxygen levels in the water to fluctuate between very high and very low levels from day to night (diurnal fluctuations). 

In contrast, a healthy stream has constant oxygen levels. As streams become more enriched with nutrients, and the algal/plant life blooms, the more the oxygen fluctuates. High fluctuations in oxygen levels can cause high rates of gross primary productivity (GPP), which is bad for biodiversity.

These changes are harmful and eventually lethal for river ecology, making it impossible for fish and insects to live. 

Water Quality

Soil Science

Soil Science - What grows in the Soil?

The Science Learning Hub has a number of great resources online, this is one of them

Observing soil microbes - website how to make one

In this activity students make a soil habitat for microbes to live in, and then they can observe what kinds of microbes grow in the different conditions - aerobic and anaerobic.  This could be set up in class and observed over a long period of time, this a great opportunity for students to see what happens to colonies of microbes over time.  

Soil Habitat

Soil profiles - Tell you what has happened in the past.

Looking a soil profile for an area, enables you to understand the history surrounding the development of the landscape.

Mastitis

This is an interactive workshop day hosted by Dairy NZ, LIC, AgResearch and University of Waikato where Year 13 students that enjoy Science to experience what a careers could be available in the Agricultural sector.
DairyNZ really need
The day consists of students experiencing 4 different interactive workshops with each of the hosts.

This year the morning workshops consisted of:

Normal cow udder

Mastitis is the inflammation of the mammary gland and udder tissue,  It is a bacterial infection that has entered through the teat canal of the udder.  

Mastitis can affect only quarter of the udder because each quarter compartment is completely separate from the others.  

Symptoms of mastitis are: inflammation (swelling) the milk appears watery, has clots in it, flakes or pus, other symptoms can include lost of appetite, increase in body temperature, reduction in mobility.

Somatic cell counts are also taken often to help detect any clinical mastitis, this is where there is no signs or symptoms yet, however is detected because the somatic cell count is raised, this shows that there is a infection that the body is fighting.  Somatic cells are mostly leukocytes (white blood cells)

Inflamed udder - Mastitis

The SCC is quantified as the number of cells per ml of milk. In general terms:

• An individual cow SCC of 100,000 or less indicates an 'uninfected' cow, where there are no significant production losses due to subclinical mastitis.
• A threshold SCC of 200,000 would determine whether a cow is infected with mastitis. Cows with a result of greater than 200,000 are highly likely to be infected on at least one quarter.

Normal udder

inflammation of udder tissue

Normal udder

inflammation of udder tissue

• Cows infected with significant pathogens have an SCC of 300,000 or greater.

There are two sources of infection, contagious and environmental. 

Contagious bacteria are the bacteria that live on the cow's udder transferred during and after milking

The main bacteria are Escherichia coli (E. coli), Streptococcus uberis and Staphylococcus aureus, 

E.Coli

Staph aureus bacteria

There are different nutrient agar used for the different bacteria, this is used to confirm what type of bacteria are responsible for the infection.

Plating 

Harvesting Maize - Quality Control

Finding our way through the maize crop... I didn't manage to get lost.

Maize                                              Sweetcorn

 Is the maize ready to harvest???  Maize is like corn, however has a lot starch and therefore does not taste as sweet as sweet corn.  Also maize is harvested when the cob is a lot drier than sweet corn.Also the kernels on maize are a bright yellow and a lighter yellow on sweet corn.  

                     milk line test

To tell whether the maize is ready to harvest and the dry matter is between 30-38%.  The milk line technique is used.  This is where on one kernel a sharp object (ball point pen tip) is pushed in and  run the length of the kernel and note when the pen goes from solid starch to milk (liquid) starch.  It should do this 2/3 of the way down the kernel if it ready for harvest.  

 The lovely Dee, weighing the amount of maize produced off a certain area, this is then used to calculate the yeild off the paddock.

The team harvesting maize for quality purpose, measurements eg. height, weight, and dry matter.

Blood Testing

Blood testing 

 

There are a lot of things that can be tested through an animal's blood.  Blood is usually collected through the tail vein, however if it can not be drawn from here it can be taken from the jugular vein in the neck of the animal.
Once the blood is taken off the animal it is stored on ice, then it is returned to the lab to be processed which could involve it being spun in a centrifuge to separate the plasma from the red and white blood cells.

Gen cuts and Rising Plate Meter

 Jen Cuts

Also known as a low cut harvester.  This little machine enables you to cut crops to various crops and harvest it and weigh it and work out the amount of dry matter in a block.


Rising Plate meter

This is a farm management tool that farmers use to quantify pasture cover on a farm.  It is one of the tools that is used to help allocate pasture to stock.  If you do it pre and post grazing measurements this ensures that the pasture has been grazed enough and or the stock are getting enough food. Basically the plate meter measures the compressed height of the grass and using an equation (which has been calibrated) converts the grass height into kg DM (kilograms dry matter)

If you are interested in more about the Rising Plate meter go to the following website where it explains it. www.dairynz.co.nz/media/253639/1-15_Using_the_Rising_Plate_Meter.pdf

Nitrogen - Why is it important?

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant (vegetative) growth. (quality and yield) Nitrogen is important because it is the building blocks for proteins, nucleic acids and it is also a component of chlorophyll and required for several enzyme reactions.  

Even though there is an abundance of nitrogen around, and air is made up of approximately 79% very little of this is available to plants.  Most of this nitrogen has to be fixed by micro-organisms before it can be used by forms of life.  Manufacturing Nitrogen fertilizers is one way of making it available to other life forms.  

Because Nitrogen is such an important element for plants it needs to be managed well, otherwise it could and can lead to environmental problems.

Even though the nitrogen applied to land is generally taken up my plants.  Livestock wastes return a considerable amount to the soil.  Nitrate (NO3)forms from this waste and because this soluble it easily drains (leaches) into the streams and rivers nearby before the plants can absorb it all.  This in turn affects ecosystems.

“Of the total nitrogen applied in 2012, an estimated 137 million kilograms leached from the soil. Only 19 percent of the loss was directly from fertiliser; the remainder was through livestock waste.”Trends in nitrogen leaching from agriculture

Facts and Figures about Nitrogen and Dairy Farming

Some facts and figures

To appreciate the enormously of the problem, We need to look at some figures.  Dairying in NZ makes up 25% of New Zealand’s export earnings. There is approximately 1.8 million hectares of dairying land.  In NZ there are 5 million dairy cows. The average number of cows per hectare is approximately 2.85.  74% of dairy herds are in the North Island and 34% of that are located in the Waikato.

On average the rate of nitrogen applied by fertiliser is 100kg/ha/year.  In 2007 there was 45kg/ha/year of nitrogen leached.

I have learnt that cows can consume a great amount of pasture a day (90-110kg) and drink anywhere from 15-60L of water.  Then they getting rid of anywhere from 30-60kg of faeces and peeing anywhere from(15-30kg). Nitrogen is in various forms in the urine.  Ammonia (volatile gas) Ammonium  and nitrates.  The cows are consuming all the nitrogen that is available in the paddock (???) to them and realistically a cow only requires about 200g of N per day.Therefore there is rather a large of amount of excess,

Urine only covers about 2% of a paddock after grazing.  Only a quarter of a paddock will get N from urine over a year.  Hence one of the reasons that Nitrogen must be applied by fertiliser.

In Autumn and Winter when there are large amounts of rain this where nitrogen leaching can cause a problem.  One method that is used to reduce amount of urine and faeces going on a paddock is to stand cows off grass, this is where Cows are put on a pad for various amounts of time over a 24h period.  Eg.  Cows are on grass during day and on pad at night.

From this research and background reading I am beginning to get an appreciation for the imbalance of N in our system there is.  Hopefully this trial can shed some light on some other possibilities that could help reduce nitrogen leaching.   

Some information courtesy of DairyNZ Research Technician - Chris Roach

Herd Testing

This week I have had the opportunity to carry out some more rather interesting activities.
1. Herd Testing
This is where individual samples of milk is taken from every milking animal and it taken to the lab and tested for various things such as milk fat, protein and somatic cell count and volume.  This is only a snap shot but helps determine factors such as:

• high or low producing animals
• infections in udder eg. mastitis

(Somatic cells are all the body cells except reproductive cells)

Herd testing is on a commercial farm is generally done 3-4 times in a year.(It is a very costly exercise) However because DairyNZ is a research farm and because there are so many trials occurring, and it also builds up quite a lot of data.

2. Jen Cuts
Also known as a low cut harvester.  This little machine enables you to cut crops to various crops and harvest it and weigh it and work out the amount of dry matter in a block.

3. Rising Plate meter

This is a farm management tool that farmers use to quantify pasture cover on a farm.  It is one of the tools that is used to help allocate pasture to stock.  If you do it pre and post grazing measurements this ensures that the pasture has been grazed enough and or the stock are getting enough food. Basically the plate meter measures the compressed height of the grass and using an equation (which has been calibrated) converts the grass height into kg DM (kilograms dry matter)

If you are interested in more about the Rising Plate meter go to the following website where it explains it. www.dairynz.co.nz/media/253639/1-15_Using_the_Rising_Plate_Meter.pdf

4. Blood testing 

 

There are a lot of things that can be tested through an animal's blood.  Blood is usually collected through the tail vein, however if it can not be drawn from here it can be taken from the jugular vein in the neck of the animal.
Once the blood is taken off the animal it is stored on ice, then it is returned to the lab to be processed which could involve it being spun in a centrifuge to separate the plasma from the red and white blood cells.

Induction Symposium

All 21 teachers selected from all around NZ, from the primary, intermediate and secondary teaching sectors arrived in Wellington at the start of February for our 3 day Induction symposium.  We were joined on the first day by some of the teachers hosts and principals and or HOD's.  It was a was an interesting day, especially listening to the hosts point of view about what they think is important for the New Zealand public should know about Science. I enjoyed getting involved with the the activity that was organised for the afternoon.  I could see how I could use this back in my classroom.
Day 2 was a nuts and bolts day - a lot of information.
Day 3 was a very challenging day as my head was hurting.  I found Sabina's presentation so much more practical than Rosemary Hipkins, I found some of the vocab new and found it hard to understand some of it, I think I will have to come back to this and revisit it when I am further down my journey.  I will have to do some research on the ideas she presented.

Week 1 DairyNZ

Firstly I had an induction at the Dairy NZ headquarters at Newstead - Hamilton.  A HR representative for the organisation spent a good hour with me explaining DairyNZ's structure.
DairyNZ http://www.dairynz.co.nz/ purpose is to secure and enhance the profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of New Zealand dairy farming.
DairyNZ was formed in 2007 from the vote of farmers and where two independent organisations Dairy Insight and Dexcel were merged.  Dairy NZ is independently run band governed by a farmer-elected board.  It is funded by farmers through a levy on milksolids.  Through this levy, farmers invest in much of the work carried out through Dairy NZ.
There are many branches within the organisation, I am part of the Research and Development Team where there are many sub branches including Business, Economics and People, Sustainability, Productivity, Feed & Systems, Animal Science, and Science Support, which is where I am located.

The organisation has developed good pathways from entry level right through to Principle Scientists. They have a range of positions in the Research & Development branch:
Principle Scientist, Senior Scientists, Post doc Scientists, PHD /MA Students, Science Interns, Senior Research Technicians, Research Technicians and Assistant Research Technicians.
They also explained that there are a lot of different areas that are explored Systems, Modelling/Biometrics, Reproduction, Nutrition, Lactation Biology, Animal Welfare and Dairy training just to name a few.

The team at Lye Farm at Dairy NZ made me extremely welcome,  I have managed to get be to get involved with various amounts of things.  I have fed cows, cut grass for analysis,  carried out tiller densities, and read....

What I have found from observation that the team work needed for this kind of work is huge, everyone is very helpful and works all together, regardless on which trial they are working on.  It goes to show you that Science is a not solo job!
I look forward to next week.

Introduction to programme - What am I actually doing!

2016 is a year of change for me. I have been lucky enough to be selected to be a Participant Teacher in the Royal Society Science Teacher Leadership Programme. This is a 1-18 month programme and occurs in two phases.
For the first six months of the year:

• I will be kindly hosted by DairyNZ and get to experience Science in action,
• I will also be involved with professional learning focused on the Nature of Science strand of the national curriculum.  
• I will participate in a intensive Leadership programme which will help me identify my leadership style and enhance my leadership skills
• I will be making connections with various people digitally and face to face

Following this I will return to school and help redevelop our Junior Program and look at incorporating a lot more of NOS.

I am really looking forward to this learning journey and I hope to share what I learnt with you all and look forward to working with you all.