Dairy CRC leaves legacy of improvement

During its term, which ended on June 30, the Dairy Futures Co-operative Research Centre (Dairy Futures CRC) used stem cell technology to develop reliable and faster genomic dairy herd improvement and improved ryegrass pasture expected to deliver farmers on-going savings of $500 or more in value per hectare.

Dairy Futures CRC was created in 2010 under the federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science's CRC initiative as a dedicated bioscience collaboration between industry, research and governments.

It was supported by Dairy Australia, Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme (ADHIS), Australian Red, Holstein and Jersey breeders' associations, Meat and Livestock Australia, La Trobe University, the Victorian government and local and international dairy products, seed and genomics companies.

Its work will be carried on by DairyBio, a five-year research initiative between La Trobe, Dairy Australia and the Victorian government, with support from ADHIS, Holstein Australia, Jersey Australia, NZ Agriseeds and Heritage Seeds.

Dairy Futures CRC chief executive officer David Nation said it had achieved its aim to double the rate of genetic gain and will deliver more than $100 per cow per year in value from improved herds.

"We can test the merit of any bull or cow against the DNA profiles from tens of thousands of cattle from across all States of Australia," Dr Nation said.

"The final delivery of herd improvement innovations means that farmers will be able to use genomics with confidence, accessing young sires and making faster progress with herd improvement."

Dairy Futures CRC chief scientist and executive director of the biosciences research branch of Agriculture Victoria German Spangenberg said its progress in pasture breeding was the most profound agricultural change in more than 30 years.

"Our major achievement is the invention of a hybrid breeding technique for ryegrass breeding," Professor Spangenberg said.

"This will unlock a 20 per cent yield advantage in hybrid ryegrass varieties and also make it easier for plant breeders to use genomic selection and add novel endophytes (fungi which extend pasture life by up to a year or 15pc) in new pasture varieties."

Dairy Australia's managing director Ian Halliday said the CRC model had been a great example of industry and research sectors collaborating.

"Each year our $2 million investment of farmer levies resulted in $20m of research and development activity and enabled very large research projects to deliver some of the most positive and permanent changes to dairy herds and dairy pastures," he said.

Mr Halliday was confident biosciences research would continue to improve dairy pastures and herds under DairyBio.

Dairy Futures CRC's legacy is bulls that can be marketed at two years of age based on DNA analysis rather than waiting six-10 years for progeny records.

Genomic selection and use of elite sires has reversed a declining fertility rate trend in dairy cows with the result that 58 of the top 100 bulls have a very high fertility breeding value.

Genomic selection has also benefited farmers with other improved and accurate traits selection, such as higher milk protein or metabolic feed efficiency projected to save up to $30 per cow per lactation in feed costs.

Genomic breeding for heat tolerance is being worked on.

Genomics research has also sped up the potential rate of change with DNA analysis producing the same information as records from nine lactations.

Dairy Futures CRC genomics research into pasture breeding has produced improved varieties much more quickly than the traditional 12 years required to breed and product test new varieties and can improve multiple traits simultaneously.

Apart from lifting yield, hybrid ryegrass varieties have delivered an extra 1 megajoule of metabolisable energy per kilogram of dried feed, potentially worth $450-$750 per hectare per year.

The centre's final legacy is 44 graduate and post-graduate students working on dairy industry projects.