Dairy R&D in SA

Discipline: environment; Key words: AFOLU, baseline emissions, methane, Jersey cows, pasture, concentrate.

Discipline: nutrition/feeding; Keywords: Digestion, energy nutrients, metabolism, milk production, reproduction.

Discipline: mastitis; Key words: bovine mastitis, ethnoveterinary medicine, antibacterial activity,  cytotoxicity. 

Ideally, pasture management should emphasize production of optimum forage yield and quality, without compromising the environment. Accurate irrigation scheduling, therefore, plays an important role in the success of a dairy enterprise by affecting forage yield and quality, irrigation input and energy usage, and environmental pollution. For years farmers arbitrarily have used an irrigation guideline of 25 mm of irrigation water per week for most temperate grasses and legumes, regardless of season or region.

The 2018 Progress Report of a study by Dr Inge-Marie Petzer of the Faculty of Veterinary Science of the University of Pretoria.

In a previous contribution we argued the economic benefit of restoration and as a consequence soil health, whether in a dairy farming context or national. Conceptually this seems a good argument, but does it pay? If restoration does not make economic sense, the country is better off without it. However, if it does make economic sense, then the opportunity cost of not restoring is negative – that is, the country is worse off by not restoring.

Fasciolosis, or liver fluke infection, results in reduced production and economic losses in dairy cattle and other livestock species. The lifecycle of the fluke, Fasciola hepatica, involves lymnaied snails as the intermediate host and depends on the development and survival of larval stages both in the snail and in the environment. This implies that the infection risk will depend on pasture and other areas harbouring the snails, as well as climatic and other environmental influences.

Female fertility is a fundamental trait for a profitable dairy herd enterprise. Studies have shown a decline in fertility probably because of dedicated selection for increased milk production. Age at first calving (AFC) and calving interval (CI) are prominent indicator traits to improve fertility, but these traits are greatly affected by management decisions. Service data present additional selection criteria with minimum bias.

Priority 1: The literature shows that almost any factor which has an influence on phosphate metabolism will affect the stability of milk. In the cow heat stress can reduce the availability of phosphate in the udder by up to 50%. It is also well known that the addition of phosphate salts can improve the stability of milk. One of the questions which should be addressed is whether milk not passing the 72% alizarol test has less phosphate than milk passing the 80% alizarol test. If so, it can be expected that low availability of phosphate plays a role during milk synthesis.

The genus Staphylococcus comprises various species and strains which are pathogenic. The most clinically relevant staphylococci are the coagulase-positive Staphylococcus aureus, members of the S. intermedius group, and the non-aureus staphylococci. A characteristic of staphylococci is their ability to develop resistance to antibiotics (for example by mutations). In South Africa, S.