THREE students undertaking honours and masters work in animal science and related disciplines have been awarded a WA Livestock Research Council (WALRC) sponsorship to cover the operational costs of their respective projects.
The University of Western Australia masters students Eloise Boland and Georgia Welsh, together with Chloe Sheridan, currently studying her honours at Murdoch, were announced this week as recipients of the inaugural WALRC scholarship program.
WALRC chairwoman Bronwyn Clarke said one of WALRC's primary roles was to nurture emerging scientists and help make sure their research endeavours were embedded in the practicality of driving production gains on farm.
"In our call for applications, we wanted to support students whose research effort was directly linked to an agreed WALRC research priority and had the capacity for us to connect our producer members with the student to drive home the philosophy of connecting research with producers," Dr Clarke said.
Each of the three recipients have projects that link closely to matters of primary interest for WALRC.
"We will be matching each scholarship recipient with a producer member of our Council who has a particular interest in their work - which allows them the opportunity to really ground truth their project and have a practical farmer consideration of their work - literally on tap," Dr Clarke said.
The projects sponsored are:
- Chloe Sheridan - Investigating the impact that bull breakdowns from balanoposthitis and ulcerative balanitis have on Western Australian beef farming businesses.
- Eloise Boland - exploring the impact of shade availability during summer joining on Merino behaviour and reproduction success due to heat stress
- Georgia Welsh - determining whether access to shade changes water consumption and behaviour leading up to drinking and how this may impact reproductive performance in Merino ewes in southern WA.
The three students will liaise regularly with WALRC as their study progresses and report formally to the Council in August and December.
Their findings will be broadly shared with industry and updates will be available via the WALRC newsletter.
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