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P6: Future Systems – Dairy Da.T.A

Dairy UP’s P6 project is exploring ways to use existing farm, climate and industry data to develop ways to monitor cows and systems to help farmers make better decisions, for example about heat management, health and feeding. One aim is to support animal and environmentally friendly intensification.

Dairy UP’s P6 project involves three areas of work:

P6 is a suite of three projects that combine animal science and data science. Each project is being undertaken by a PhD student.

P6a: Resilient cattle (heat tolerance): optimising on-farm energy use and cooling systems.
P6b: Resilient cattle (health): early intervention for improved animal health, enabled by advanced sensing.
P6c: Digital feeding – data-driven feeding to optimise grain allocation in pasture-based herds.

Progress

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Project Update (October 2023)

This project aims to utilise data, advanced technologies and automation to integrate information from multiple sources to enable the creation of tools that support on-farm decisions.

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Publication (July 2024)

Ruminant Heat-stress terminology

PhD Projects

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P6 - Cow responses to climate extremes

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P6 - Novel monitoring tools to optimise individual animal management

P6a Resilient Cattle (heat tolerance)

Dairy UP’s PhD student, Alice Shirley recently had a review published in the Animal Journal.

Data drives future dairy management

Data could hold the key to a future where calves are weaned according to their rumination development, resilient cows identified to cope with our extreme environments and supplement allocations are optimised within herds.
That’s according to University of Sydney Associate Professor Cameron Clark.

Cameron Clark

Prof Farming Systems | Deputy Director - Gulbali Institute for Agriculture, Water and Environment |Charles Sturt University

Project Team:

Yani Garcia (Usyd)
Ian Lean (Scibus)
Jim Rothwell (NSW DPI)
Peter Thompson (Usyd)
Anna Chlingaryan (USyd)
Maddison Pearce (USyd)
Alice Shirley (USyd)