Positive turnout for Efficient Beef Field Day

Cattle producers and key representatives went behind the scenes of two major beef industry research projects running in collaboration with NSW DPI to learn about their latest developments.

The Efficient Beef Field Day, hosted by the University of New England (UNE) at their SMART Farms Tullimba Feedlot, showcased the Southern Multi Breed and Low Methane Beef projects by giving producers the opportunity to view the animals involved in the projects, seek information from key researchers and obtain the latest updates for each project.

Dr Kath Donoghue, Project Leader, from the Sothern Multi Breed project provided an overview and update of the project to industry and producers (Figure 1). The presentation included the project outcomes, the experimental design, the new traits being recorded as result of the project and the timelines of the three cattle cohorts.

Dr Tom Granleese, Project Leader, from the Low Methane Beef project also provided insight into the new project surrounding lower methane producing cattle.

Following the presentations, attendees were taken to view the cattle currently in the feedlot, which included a group of SMB steers. Dr Brad Walmsley gave a brief overview of how the cattle within the project are managed, and Dr Tom Granleese explained the mechanism of the Green Feed machines used to collect methane emission measurements from individual animals.