Contents

• Dairy systems for environmental protection
  Dairy farming is coming under increasing pressure to reduce its environmental footprint. DairyNZ has responded to the challenge of N pollution by identifying dairy systems that use more efficient practices to reduce wastage.
• High BW cows are more N efficient
  The nitrogen (N) content of winter and spring pasture often exceeds cow requirements and much of the excess is excreted in the urine.
• Pasture diversity
  The production focus of dairy farming has led to a limited range of plants being used - predominantly perennial ryegrass-white clover pastures with some brassicas and maize. Species diversity is a hot topic in grassland ecology.
• Strategies to reduce nitrogen leaching
  The design of dairy systems with increased production and profit but lower N leaching presents a problem with an inherent contradiction.Generally higher production depends on more input to the system, whereas reduced N leaching generally requires lowering input.
• Recently published by DairyNZ
  DairyNZ researchers publish their findings.
• Delving into DNA
  In this series we explain how genes are used in the first step of making the required product from the ‘recipe’.
• Focus on international research
  Brief summaries of key international science papers recently published.