Transcript

3 Baron-Hay Court, South Perth Western Australia 6151Telephone: +61 (0)8 9368 3333 Fax: +61 (0)8 9474 2405Email: enquiries@dpird.wa.gov.au

In the audio are:

Beth Paganoni, Research Officer, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD)

Sarah Blumer, Research Officer, Murdoch University

Bruce Mullan, Director Livestock Research and Development, DPIRD

Transcript

Beth:Hi my name is Beth Paganoni and I'm a research officer for the sheep industry business innovation program of the Department of Primary Industries.

Sarah: My name is Kate Pritchett; I am an industry analyst for the livestock industries with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development in WA.

Bruce:Hi I'm Bruce Mullen, I'm the director of livestock research and development here at DPIRD and when my key responsibilities is the sheep industry and hence the interest in the research station field day in Katanning.

Beth:And we're all here today talking about the next sheep industry field day which is happening on the 22nd of March at the Katanning research facility. The title of the day is a “Farmer wants a life”, which is all about dealing with the flock around the clock and how we can introduce more efficiencies to sheep farming. Sarah what are you looking forward to on the programme?

Sarah: I'm just mostly looking forward to hearing from farmers on the day, I get really excited when people come and have conversations with us about the work that we're doing. Specifically I will be talking about that, looking at adult ewe feed efficiency and I'll be doing that as a bit of a tag team with John Young, but I'm quite excited to listen to Nathan Scott speaking. I follow him on Twitter and read some of his blogs so I'm really keen to hear what he's got to say and it will be really great to see him over in WA.

Beth: Excellent, and now speaking of fat, while we're on that topic I've heard we've got new DEXA machine at Katanning, is that correct?

Sarah: Betty I'm so excited about the DEXA machine, so yes we have them as a joint initiative between Murdoch University and DPIRD in WA. So we bought a DEXA machine at the end of last year so this is for measuring bone densitometry in humans but and they're also used for body composition studies which is the primary reason that we've bought it. So it has come out of human medicine that was used up until a few months ago in America and so it's been shipped over here and we've set it up down at Katanning and in a few weeks we'll start putting sheep through it so we can we can start to look in a bit more detail at body composition in sort of large numbers of sheep so I'm very excited and it'll be great to have a look at it hopefully some of the stuff that it’s producing on and on the day at the SIBI field day.

Beth: Excellent, now Bruce have you put yourself through this machine yet?

Bruce:Oh no I haven't had the pleasure of the opportunity there's that Beth no, and I’m not sure what you're implying, but I think it's a great machine with reviews a lot in the pork industry and it's a really good way to look at the changes in composition of animals and I think it's just one of those technologies, it's really going to have an impact on sheep industry one way or another over time.

Beth: Speaking of the industry a day like our SIBI field day, what are the major things that it is offering the industry do you think Bruce?

Bruce: I think that I think one of the really good things about these sorts of field days is that they are very practical. People can actually see things happening, it's a very casual sort of environment so you're not in a seminar room where you've got a hundred people and the same three people ask all the questions. Here you're in a networking opportunity, you're brushing shoulders with other farmers and students and researchers; so you know there shouldn't be anyone who goes away from a day like that and hasn't had the opportunity to ask a question or discuss an issue with someone so it's a really great networking opportunity too.

Beth: Topics that have been filtered to the public arena are along the lines of “Sins of the father, the hidden mysteries of maternal genetics”, and “Sheep passports - where have they been, what did they do and with who?” which is implying some mum topics around individual animal data and perhaps the idea identification and traceability. Bruce, in terms of traceability within the sheep industry we know that electronic ID has become compulsory in Victoria, and we have Nathan Scott speaking about this exact topic and how that's going for Victoria, do you have any information or know how soon that situation might be relevant for Western Australia?

Bruce: I think it's what, I think it's going to be relevant and it's relevant already with those people who have introduced it themselves and I know they are mainly breeding stud breeders etc., but there are other commercial operators who are using electronic identification and getting real value for money out of it, so I don't know when the industry will adopt it but I'm sure that in some time, yeah people will see the real value of it and it'll get cheaper and cheaper and it'll just give us the opportunity to know more about their each animal and again as you said at the beginning Beth, it’s about efficiencies in the industry too, you know, so while we can celebrate good prices for sheep and wool we still have to drive for better efficiencies and there's a lot of a lot of potential in the industry to do that.

Sarah: So I'm quite excited about the precision that that sort of technology is going to give us, it's a so a really exciting point given the value of our of our market so that's obviously a really great bottom line for our farmers to take away but the sort of technologies like EIDs and the sort of tags that Dave Ruby's going to be speaking about. It just offer us the opportunity to apply the sort of precision that that the cropping guys are already working on, so really looking forward to seeing those technologies roll out over the next few years and seeing how those really forward-thinking producers are putting it into use and how we can sort of maximise that return. Yield maps for sheep, I mean you know, I followed lots of farmers on Twitter and you know seeing the rolling out their harvest your maps is really exciting and you know if we get to that level with shape that will be we'll be seeing some really fantastic information there.

Bruce: And just to follow on from you say I think one of the things that we have done he's got a lot of students from the universities come down to the field day and they're the sort of people who I think see these technologies get excited about it and say the sheep industry is a place to work and it's not just the grains industry, so it's another benefit from that sort of technology.

So Beth, at the last year's field day you really got the attention of all those producers and others that were there with your skit of showing how sensors work, what do you got in mind for us this year? What's gonna…why should we come and see you at the field day this year?

Beth: I don't think will be quite having the rave cave that I am I had set up last year but there will be something different! We're moving on to the analysis of our sensor data now which is an extremely exciting phase as its yielding us a lot of information at the maternal level at lambing time with maternal traits such as mothering ability and these sensors are enabling us to measure some aspects of mothering ability that we've only been able to do in a subjective capacity before.

So the data that we're looking at is incredibly interesting and it's going to give us some really good new ways of objectively looking at maternal traits from both the genetic and phenotypic point-of-view. So I'll be presenting some of that data from our work with sensors over the past 12 months and complementing that because maternal ability and maternal traits are directly related to of course our big-ticket item which is lamb survival, and so to complement our sensor work I will also be having Amy Lockwood presenting with me, who is just in the finishing stages of her PhD, very similar to Sarah Blumer, and she will be presenting some of her final data from looking at experiments based on mob size and how different mob sizes at lambing time can affect lamb survival quite significantly so those two aspects of lamb survival and maternal ability at lambing will be will be, in relation to new technologies, will be discussed in my session.

Beth: Just one final thing because it is the final field day for SIBI which has been an outstanding program from my point of view to be involved in and a great team - what is next, what happens for us beyond the end of the financial year and for our state industry?

Bruce: Well the sheep industry is really important for DPIRD so you know we still have a lot of a lot of activity happening in the R&D space so I'd really like to see the field day, if this year is a success and we get a good roll up of producers and students etc., I'd like to get to be an annual event and you know and we do have good support from the universities. I think it's a good format so I'd love to see it continue on in some format.

Beth: I thank so much both of you for joining me today are we seeing you both at the field day on March 22nd at Katanning. As I mentioned there's no cost to producers to come to the day for industry people. We’ll be closing with the sponsored sundowner. The only thing that we I guess we do want to encourage people to do is RSVP so that we can make sure that we've catered for everybody on the day.

So that's “Farmer wants a life”, the sheep industry research open day in Katanning, March 22nd and hopefully we'll see you all there.

End of transcript