Dairy farmers want more research into herd fertility as well as animal health and feed efficiency, according to a survey conducted by AgriSearch.

AgriSearch have thanked all those dairy farmers, who responded to the recent survey seeking to identify the scientific research most urgently required to address current problems and knowledge gaps facing the Northern Ireland dairy industry.

Within the fertility topic, the specific areas identified as being of highest research priority were; health and fertility, nutrition and fertility, and heat detection.

Within the animal health and welfare topic, calf health was scored as the highest priority research area, followed by mastitis, and then infectious disease, longevity, and lameness, with these latter three all having similar scores. These areas all represent on-going production challenges and again it is unsurprising that they have been highlighted by this survey.

Within the feed efficiency / nutrition topic, forage quality and the closely related area of forage intakes / grass utilisation emerged as the highest priority research areas, followed by efficient concentrate use. Again, all are highly relevant research priorities, interacting with many important aspects of the farm business, particularly in terms of profitable milk production.

The survey also found that farmers like a “broad brush” approach to the dissemination of research results with farm walks coming out on top followed closely by the farming press with a range of other dissemination methods also scoring well.

The questionnaire was developed by Dr. Gareth Arnott, an AgriSearch funded research fellow based within the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University.

To browse the survey results in full visit www.agrisearch.org.