Massey University and Australian animal welfare experts gathered for their first meeting to talk through animal welfare issues, putting them on the world animal welfare stage, says Massey’s Professor Kevin Stafford reports The Manawatu Standard. The meeting saw representatives from five research institutions come together to discuss how they could contribute to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), particularly in Oceania and the wider Asian region.

Massey’s Animal Welfare Science and Bioethics Centre was named as an OIE collaborating centre in 2007. The centre operates as a partnership between the New Zealand and Australian governments and the research institutions. And the history and future of animal welfare is encompassed in a new book co-written by two Massey University researchers involved in the centre. The book provides distinct New Zealand perspectives on the theory and practice of animal welfare science set in a global context.

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Massey University professor Paul Moughan says although NZ still has some world-class science teams in certain areas, it has lost the lead in some other areas of agrifood. ‘Now is the time to muster our resources and achieve new alignments in agrifood research and tertiary education,’ he says. Writing in Massey University newsletter MasseyNews, Moughan notes that overseas there are numerous recent examples of the merging of complementary agrifoods research and training organizations reports Rural News. He says in the case of universities, such re-alignments are also driven by the educational imperative that the undergraduate educational experience should be broad-based and that students should be exposed to diverse disciplines and lines of thinking.

‘Much of a student’s learning occurs outside formal lectures and the whole academic and social milieu of the university is very important. ‘Many of the best modern universities recognise that the education of students is enhanced when teaching and learning is undertaken within a diverse mix of students, staff and disciplines.’ A recent move to merge state-owned crown research institute AgResearch and Lincoln fell through. He says combining Massey’s and Lincoln’s strengths will create a world-class organisation of critical size and would offer undergraduate and postgraduate scholars an unsurpassed broad-based educational experience.

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Blue-sky ryegrass research should help tell where ryegrass plants store their sugars, and that could give breeders more knowledge about how to breed a more productive plant reports The Manawatu Standard. Arif Robin, a plant science PhD student at Massey University’s Institute of Natural Resources, is using brewery-sourced “light” carbon dioxide and feeding that to plants, through plastic bags surrounding the test plants. They are being grown hydroponically in one of Massey’s Plant Growth Unit glasshouses.

It is to better understand the physiology of ryegrass, which is one of the major pasture plants. Associate Professor Cory Matthew is overseeing the research. “Light” carbon acts as a marker for where photosynthesis products from a particular leaf, or branch shoot are distributed within the plant. “It means we know exactly what leaf or shoot is responsible for feeding a particular part of the plant,” Prof Matthew said. The idea is to use the light gas to trace sugars in the plant parts.

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Improving returns from NZ beef have seen PhD student and lecturer Rebecca Hickson travel the length of Massey University’s 474ha Tuapaka farm more times than she cares to recall reports the Rural News. From daytime visits to observe the cows in the paddock atop the Tararua Range, to eight-hour shifts providing a 24-hour monitoring and assessment of each of the cows as they laboured, her job was to identify the most effective calvers.  Intensively monitoring the Angus herd was a labour of love, Hickson says. ‘We watched every one give birth,’ she says. ‘Recordings included how long it took, time at each stage, birth time and weight. We watched 65 give birth the first year and 80 the following.’ The measure of efficiency used the weight of the calf at weaning divided by the liveweight of the cow.

The Massey team, funded by MWNZ and led by Professor Steve Morris, also questioned when heifers were best calved.‘It was more profitable to calve heifers at two instead of three years of age,’ Hickson says. ‘Rate of assistance at calving increased with birthweight of the calf and decreasing liveweight of heifers but wasn’t affected by body dimensions.’Industry surveys revealed a difficult birth was implicated in half of the calf deaths between birth and marking, so Hickson’s research can be used to minimise those losses by selecting cow and sire size to contribute to ease of calving.

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NZ’s top vets have welcomed the Govt’s bonding scheme to combat the shortage of rural vets. Agr Minister David Carter announced the scheme, which encourages vets to stay in an eligible rural practice by providing a payment of $11,000 annually for up to five years. Massey University is the only training provider for veterinary science in NZ. About 95 vets graduate from the five-year Bachelor of Veterinary Science programme, based at the Manawatu campus, each year.

Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences head Professor Grant Guilford says the bonding scheme is a “good start” to the shortage of rural vets. “It’s not the answer in isolation but we have worked closely with the Government to develop the scheme and it is a well-thought out financial incentive, especially the decision to withhold payment till after the end of the third year. We also support the opportunity to iron out wrinkles in the transition period.”

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