Research interests

• Sheep breeding and genetics 
• Precision sheep production systems 
• On farm uptake of technology and decision support tools

Background

Cheryl Pope recommenced employment at Orange Agricultural Institute with NSW Department of Primary industries in 2004. She was employed by NSW Ag* in 1996-1997.

Cheryl has worked in both private and public organizations and is passionate about empowering producers to use the outputs from science and research.

She is currently involved in delivering the Precision Sheep Masterclass and the development of support materials to help with timely, high quality production decisions. Cheryl has a keen interest in analysing data from the Trangie research flocks and applying the research findings to stud and commercial flocks. She played a pivotal role in the development of the National training packages for On-Farm Fibre Measurement (OFFM) for producers and Wool Classers.

During her first employment with Ag NSW she surveyed producers about their ram purchasing decisions and produced the Wool and Sheep meat situation statement for NSW.

She is currently enrolled in a Masters of Animal Management (Genetics) program. Cheryl is a graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program (2002) and is Co-Chair of NSW DPI's Women’s Consultative Committee (2007/8 and 2008/9).

*NSW Department of Primary Industries was formed on July 1, 2004 through an amalgamation of NSW Agriculture, NSW Fisheries, State Forests of NSW and the NSW Department of Mineral Resources.

Qualifications

• BSc – Flinders University, SA - 1977
• BEc – University of Queensland - 1991
• MBA – University of Central Queensland - 1997
• MSc (Communication) – University of Central Queensland - 2003
• MSTC – Adelaide University  - 2005

Current projects

Cheryl is currently fully employed on Sheep CRC projects.

These are:

• Improving lamb and weaner survival
• Understanding and improving reproductive performance
• Implementing precision sheep production systems on farm 
• Using data to support high quality on farm decisions 
• Industry extension and training

Recent Publications

Pope CE, Atkins KD (2009) Levels of post-weaning loss in the Trangie D flock (1975-1983) Proc AAABG Conference ( in Press)

Pope CE, Atkins KD (2008) Can Electronic tags Affect the Cost of Data Collection? Proc Aust Soc. Animal Production, Vol 27, p23

Pope CE (Editor) Trangie QPLU$ Merinos – Open Day 2007

Pope CE (Editor) Trangie QPLU$ Merinos – Open Day 2006

Professional associations and activities

• Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics 
• Australian Society of Animal Production

Fields of Research

• 070201 Animal Breeding 
• 070203 Animal Management 
• 070206 Animal Reproduction

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

Keyword/phrase list of research interests

• Merino genetic improvement 
• precision sheep management 
• technology transfer and adoption