ROCK MUSIC Captions by Catherine de Chalain. Edited by Faith Hamblyn. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016. Hello, and welcome to Rural Delivery. Since the 1980s, the dairy industry has been selecting animals for breeding that are the most efficient converters of pasture to milk solids. The Breeding Worth measure was established to identify animals with the most potential for feed conversion efficiency over their lifetime. This week ` we learn about a multi-party dairy industry study to identify the genes delivering animals that will reliably and efficiently convert feed to milk solids, with the aim of adding that to the Breeding Worth traits. Then we go to the Bay of Plenty to meet Neil Heather, who's been recognised for his advocacy over a number of years on behalf of farmers in the region. And we join scientists at Victoria University who are on the search for a clean, green antifungal agent produced by feijoas. Dairy industry organisations and businesses have joined forces under a Primary Growth Partnership project to produce a more efficient dairy cow. The large-scale study involving DairyNZ, LIC and Ambreed is now under way to try to identify a feed conversion efficiency breeding value. The work has the potential to generate significantly better production from individual cows, resulting in maximum performance from each unit of feed given. This is the residual feed intake trial, trying to identify those animals that actually eat less than you'd think, based on their live weight, their growth ` so those ones that are more efficient at converting that feed into product. It enables farmers to feed the animals less for the same amount of output. So obviously, there's profitability gains from that. Every kilogram of feed costs the farmer roughly 30c, so every kg that they can save from that, um, is 30c saved on that. So these animals here ` uh, you're looking at trying to save, say, half a kg of feed, because they are more efficient, so that translates into roughly 15c per day, um, in saving. We've been working very much with the breeding companies to identify the bulls of interest. We're also working with, um, our own DairyNZ staff, AgResearch as well for some of the testing protocols, and all funded by this Primary Growth Partnership, which enables it to occur. In terms of where we're at with the current trial, we have two groups of animals that have gone through these facilities. So the first group was around 40 bulls and 160 heifers,... and then the second group is slightly less numbers, just to finish off the trials. Feed efficiency is the all-encompassing thing, but, uh, residual feed intake is the difference between what you would expect an animal to eat and what they actually eat, and what you would expect it to eat is, um, the livew` you'd use the liveweight of the animal and the liveweight gain, go back to standard tables and how much they would require for that growth. Similar work to this has been done over a number of years with chickens and with pigs. Tremendous amount of gain in terms of how much feed they need to offer chickens for growth, and the same for pigs. It's probably been used to a lesser extent in beef cattle, and really, this is one of the first attempts with dairy cattle. Generally, when you're looking at mature cattle or lactating dairy cattle, there's a lot happening. So there's a lot of liveweight gain and a lot of loss during lactation, so it's very hard to measure. With beef cattle, chickens or pigs, all you're looking at is liveweight gain, so it's much easier to measure. We've used 10 sires that are in high usage throughout the country, and we've selected progeny from them ` so heifers and bull calves from them. This work continues on from earlier work we did here with calves where we put about 1050 calves through, and we found the extremes ` most efficient and least efficient. There was a difference of around 20% in intake. An Australian group did the work at the same time as us and got almost identical results. If we can identify that it is heritable, it will mean that the AI cooperatives will be able to measure efficiency or residual feed intake within their young bulls before they go into their progeny testing teams. We're after a marker, but also there may be other things that we may be able to measure, like, um, heat loss. There are some indications that the most efficient animals lose less heat, so we are photographing some of the calves with a thermo-image camera to measure heat loss, particularly around the eye and the muzzle. They're in the facility for about 45 days, and there'll be about 35, 38 days of measurement, so they're in there for a period of seven or so days where they're just getting used to the facilities. In the previous work with just heifers, the most efficient calves ate about 10% less than the average, and the least efficient calves about 10% more than the average of the group, so when you extrapolate that out, that's about 20% difference between the two extremes in intake. If we can get the similar differences here with the bulls and the heifers and we can identify heritable traits from that, it'll be very good for us. What we're looking at here is real-time information about what's happening out in the pens. So the calves' EID is being read, the weigh scales are giving us information on how much is eaten, and it's coming back here. So here we've got the EID of the calf for the individual bins, the scale weight, and down here we have the amount of feed that each calf has eaten. The value of this information ` cos it's real-time, this means that we can look at the data and find out whether the animals are eating at different times of the day. So we can also look at behavioural aspects ` so they're being ad lib fed, but are some of them being forced to eat only at night or something like that, when the other calves aren't eating? We can't feed pasture, because it's not consistently the same over a period of time. Where you can harvest lucerne and it is consistent. This is crucial because we need a consistent feed. It's easy to feed out, and it stays the same dry matter per cent. So if you use pasture, it changes in dry matter percentage sitting in the bin. It drops away. Moisture dissipates out of it. We're sourcing this from Australia, and it needs to be in cubes rather than pellets, because we need a reasonable amount of fibre length, otherwise we get rumen acidosis with the calves. There's a lot of international work as well in this area. So in Australia, they've also been pursuing residual feed intake trait. In Europe, in the States ` it's very much a hot area around the world now, cos it's the last bastion to try and understand in these animals in the future. And there's certainly interest in the beef sector. Any animal that can produce more meat from less feed is obviously a benefit of that, so we're working with Beef + Lamb to extend it. Our limit, though, is the farm gate ` the dairy farmer's farm gate, but certainly I know there's trials that are going in the sheep sector and the beef sector. The ultimate aim is to have a feed conversion efficiency breeding value, so inherent, um, efficiency, and then that information then being used in the Breeding Worth calculation ` so an additional trait to be used in there ` and.... and we've estimated that, um... that this could be worth, say, 5-10 million to the industry per annum, just by selecting for this trait. We'll be back soon to meet Neil Heather, a farmer advocate for the Bay of Plenty, where he's based. 1 ROCK MUSIC Welcome back. For Neil Heather, early frustrations with regional and district council regulations and planning galvanised him into becoming involved with farming advocacy through Federated Farmers. This year, he was awarded the Outstanding Advocacy Award for his work as an influencer and leader for farmers and local councils. The award also recognised his passion for farming and sense of community. The farm consists of a sheep and beef farm with an Angus stud, which is pretty unusual nowadays ` having cows on a property ` but, you know, it's a part of the farming that I enjoy, and it's not all about, uh, you know, making heaps of money. Um, I feel that, you know, I've gotta enjoy doing what I'm doing as well. PC10 is the new environmental plan that the council has come up with for the Rotorua catchment, and they're wanting to get a fair amount of nitrogen out of the system, which they say is affecting Lake Rotorua and Rotoiti to some extent. So we're gonna have to make reductions in our nitrogen leeching only, because that's what they're concentrating on, and the only way we really can do that is by reducing stocking rates. It's a marginal dry stock farm as it is, that 220 effective areas, and with further restrictions with PC10, I think it's gonna be actually more difficult, uh, to` for it to be, uh, profitable, um, and you certainly` we'll have to reassess, uh,... the farming business in the next few years, uh, to see what we will do with it. I did a farm management plan with the regional council and identified hotspots, which we, uh, duly fenced off and planted, and I planted in natives, so, uh, it was a tick for phosphorous, because they were gullies, and it was a tick for biodiversity, but because Plan Change 10 singularly focuses on nitrogen, it actually increased my nitrogen leeching on the rest of my effective area, because I did not decrease my stocking rate. It's frustrating, I think, because when you're dealing with planners, they actually have no idea about, um, farming practices or what happens on farms. They don't understand farming at all, so you're actually` when you're involved in that kind of process, you have to educate them a bit and try and get them to understand how things work before you can actually move forward. There's 25 hectares of run-off off Mt Ngongotaha, and it goes through a four-pond system, as well as off our cattle yards ` even though we don't use them a lot ` but any run-off goes through those ponds. So in a high rainfall event, the water from the 25 hectares goes through those four ponds, and actually, by the time it actually overflows the last pond to get to the river, all the sediment has dropped out, but once again, that doesn't count for anything either. I consider we've been doing the right thing for 30 years with, you know, fencing off the rivers. Even though it was part of the Kaituna Catchment scheme, we still went ahead and did it, and since then we've planted a lot of trees, especially natives. I'm pretty passionate about our natives. Um, and one thing I have noticed is quite a few more wood pigeons, uh, back in, uh, on the farm, which we hadn't seen before. Um, and I've just gotta re` relook at it, because by rights, I` I shouldn't be planting any more areas, um, and retiring them and` and planting them in natives when it's gonna, uh, increase the nitrogen loading on the rest of my farm. Um, and with the proposed rules as they are, I cannot` I'm not allowed to go above what I'm leeching, um, with the allocation system that they came up with. I got involved with Feds, uh, about 15 years ago, and that was when they brought the rainfall tax here in Rotorua, so we got taxed for how much rain landed on our farm and washed down into the lakes. I was just pissed off about it. I thought, you know, 'This is getting out of hand.' Um, the councils ` both the district and regional council ` were just finding ways to, uh, you know, rate us for more and more bizarre little things. What kept me involved with Rotorua-Taupo Feds was actually mainly the people. People in the local province were good. They were welcoming. They encouraged me to get involved, and I went on from there. Over the years, I'd say 20% of my time would be, uh, taken up with advocacy work ` um, a lot of it, yes, at night ` um, and that's what's really good about some of the staff is that they'll talk to you at night and, you know, when` when we're not working, um, when they should` shouldn't be working either. Um, and just with,... you know, just with some of the bizarre plans, and` and ` whether it's a district plan or the regional plan or PC10 ` you know, um, just some of the bizarre things that they wanna put on farmers, um, for apparent` you know, no apparent reason. After the district plan, I had the policy staff out on the farm for a barbecue once mediation was over, and we took them up the farm and explained some of the implications of their proposed rules ` even though it was after the event ` and it was kind of like a bit of a light bulb moment for them, and they then understood a little bit of where we were coming from. I got an award for Outstanding Advocacy Award. It's the first year these awards have been put up for Federated Farmers, um, for the work that I've done in the Rotorua catchment, and probably Federated Farmers on a wider scale, but, um, you know, you're only as good as` as the team you've got around you, and actually, the policy staff that are in the Feds and actually do all the hard work for you, but we're the ones that get recognised for it. Um, and yeah,... I... I take my hat out` off to them, because I` I think they do a brilliant job. They don't get any recognition. We get all the recognition, but they still do it. When we return, we're at Victoria University to find out about how the observations of a Golden Bay feijoa breeder has led to the search for a new antifungal agent. 1 ROCK MUSIC Hello again. An observant feijoa breeder in Golden Bay noticed that many of his feijoa varieties were resistant to fungal attack, even after being damaged. He approached researchers at Victoria University to help him find out more. Dr Rob Keyzers explains where this early research is leading in the field of biodiscovery. Here at Victoria University, we have what's called the Centre for Biodiscovery, and the whole premise behind that internal research centre is to bring different research groups with different experiences and expertise together to try and solve issues in drug discovery and biodiscovery, basically. Back in early 2013, I got a phone call from a feijoa breeder by the name of Nigel Ritson, who works with a company called Foretaste Feijoas. And Nigel, um, develops a whole, uh, large number of new cross-breeds every year, and, uh, he'd made two distinct observations. One was that, uh, if you have a feijoa fruit,... and for whatever reason it gets damaged or it gets cut, uh, and exposes the` the flesh of the` the fruit on the tree, um, that the feijoa fruit is really resistant to fungal infection. And then the second observation he made is that he's been able to develop a way of taking his cross-breeds and basically, predicting whether the, uh, progeny will taste good or have a certain fruit size or shape, and he was starting to wonder whether we might be able to get some sort of predictive quality from his cross-breeding to select fruit that have enhanced resistance to infection, and in particular, fungal infection. So his idea was to basically, try and develop a clean and green antifungal material from feijoas. There's two aspects to this project. One has been the chemistry side ` the analytical chemistry ` and the other is the antifungal bioactivity work that Andrew does. We've looked at a number of different feijoa varieties. And so what we've been trying to do is to do a chemical profile of each variety, measure the different constituent chemicals within both the peel and ` separately ` the pulp, and then compare that chemical profile with the observed antifungal activity, which is what Andrew does. We then look for the ones that have the maximal antifungal, and then correlate that to their chemical profile, and start to use some statistics then to say, 'Well, that's the compound, 'that's the chemical there that's going to be mediating the antifungal activity.' We've achieved proof of concept for validation of Nigel's idea, actually. It was his concept, and through our PhD student that Andrew and I share ` Mona ` she's taken 16 different feijoa varietals, she's analysed the chemical composition of them, she's done the bioactivity profiling. And there is a very nice correlation between the chemistry and the observed antifungal activity, and she's now going through the process of actually figuring out ` well, OK, that's the one compound or two compounds in a feijoa that are largely responsible. How do they elicit their antifungal response? So I think we've been able to` to validate Nigel's idea that, um, through some clever chemistry and biology, um, that we can start to tease out these complicated, um, uh, mixtures which you find in a fruit, and actually start to do` to come up with something useful from them. What we do is we obtain the varieties from Nigel in Takaka. Mona isolates the compounds, and what we do in this particular lab is we expose those compounds to yeast. We use yeast for its genetic power and its antimicrobial power. So, yeast is a fungus, so just by nature, we automatically get an insight into potential antifungal activity. We expose the compounds to the yeast, and then initially, we just look for antifungal activity. So, and then, uh, how much does the compound inhibit the growth of yeast? Um, and then if we find` find that there's a compound that's... that shows antifungal potential, we need to do two extra things. One is to identify that the antifungal mechanism is distinct from the already established antifungal mechanisms, and then secondly, we need to test its antifungal p` potency against other fungi. So far we've been working on it about two years, and we've gotten about 16 different varieties from Feijoa Foretaste, and we've identified the compounds in each of these varieties. And so what's interesting now is to compare the chemical compound profiling to the pedigrees and see if breeders can exploit our findings and potentially breed certain varieties just for particular traits. I can foresee the idea would be to try and use these predictive qualities to say, 'Well, here's a fruit that tastes good but should have a greater resistance to infection ` 'hopefully might have a longer lifetime, be able to be shipped overseas without worrying 'that it's going to degrade because of... of rot.' Um, and so, a) develop a` a better export fruit, um, and the second sideline might be to develop a ` as I said before ` a clean green, um, antifungal, uh, product. Doesn't necessarily have to come from a fruit that tastes good, or it could come from skins that are a by-product of feijoa processing, um, but that, uh, we could then actually market and make something use` some use of a waste` waste product. Um, I'm not saying that the varietals we've looked at necessarily are going to tick those boxes yet, but what we've been able to show, I believe, is that there is that kind of promise in` in the project. For more information on these and other stories we've covered, visit our website. Get there via tvnz.co.nz You can also watch this and previous episodes on TVNZ on Demand using the keywords Rural Delivery. Next week ` we meet some of the residents of the Otago Peninsula who began a land care group to protect the area's biodiversity and who are now working on making it predator-free. And we speak with Brendon Cross, chair of the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group and farmer on the peninsula. Then we find out about work at AgResearch Invermay and Otago University that's aiming to deliver improved productivity in deer-farming systems. Thanks for watching. Please join us again next time. Captions by Catherine de Chalain. Edited by Faith Hamblyn. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016.