AFBI Announce Plans for Major Dairy Open Day at Hillsborough
AFBI will be holding a major Dairy Open Day at Hillsborough, on the 6th June this year. The theme will be Dairy Innovation 2018: Profiting from AFBI Research. The Open Day will be run in partnership with AgriSearch and CAFRE and will feature current research work at AFBI in support of the dairy sector. This will provide the opportunity to view the latest research and also to discuss how AFBI scientists are using the latest technologies to find new ways of optimising farming practices.
Optimising Nutrient Supply for Grass Growth - Latest AFBI Research
Optimising soil nutrients and increasing the efficiency of soil nutrient management will be one of the key topics to be featured at the AFBI Dairy Open Day on 6th June. From August 2017, grass utilisation on many farms across Northern Ireland was severely hampered by saturated soils and difficult ground conditions. This has continued through into the first few months of 2018, with very challenging conditions that have delayed the start of the grazing season for many farmers.
On Friday 6th April the Bushmills Salmon Station was visited by BBC Homeground. Filming was undertaken around the salmon station and focused on the young salmon smolts which leave the river Bush in the spring. AFBI staff explained the scientific and monitoring programmes undertaken at the station and demonstrated a variety of smolt tagging methods. In addition the film-makers visited the River Bush where they released a batch of tagged salmon. The crew were then taken out by boat to the coast adjacent to the River Bush estuary and were shown the deployment of acoustic telemetry kit and were involved in the active tracking of smolts at sea.
AFBI is appealing for help from anglers and recreational fishermen and women who may catch codlings from rocky shores, beaches and angling boats this summer. ABFI want to tag these cod and release them back into the sea. They are also sponsoring a recreational angling shore competition TOMORROW 28th April on the East Antrim coast, to both tag cod and raise awareness of the Irish Sea Cod Tagging Project which AFBI are currently managing.
The Nutrient Management Centre at AFBI Hillsborough, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is currently being commissioned with a key goal to explore technologies which offer opportunities for better nutrient management of slurry and digestate.
British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) Annual Conference
Several AFBI staff and students attended The British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) Annual Conference from 9th to 11th April. This year the conference was jointly organised by BSAS, the World Poultry Science Association and the Irish Agricultural Research Forum. As such it was considered the UK and Ireland’s premier animal science conference and in recognition of its popularity and impact, was in Dublin at the renowned GAA venue, Croke Park.
AFBI Issues Nematodiris Warning to Sheep Flock Owners - Spring 2018
AFBI Veterinary Sciences Division wishes to advise sheep farmers of the likely risk of Nematodirus worm infection in young lambs occurring at this time of year. Nematodirus infection results from the ingestion of large numbers of infective worm larvae present on contaminated pasture. Lambs grazing the same pasture in the previous year were the source of this contamination.
Professor Louise Cosby, Head of Virology Branch, AFBI VSD will be hosting an Ulster Immunology Group Guest Lecture by Dr Dalan Bailey, The PirBright Institute, UK entitled "Dissecting the zoonotic potential of non-human morbilliviruses" on Friday 18th May at the Wellcome-Wolfson Building basement seminar room, Queen's University Belfast.
This month Dr Claire Jack - Agricultural and Food Economics Branch talks about her role in AFBI. I graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a degree in Economics. I then worked in banking before returning to Queen’s to undertake my PhD in Agricultural Economics. I joined the Agricultural and Food Economics branch in AFBI in 2005. I currently lead the micro-modelling section within economics.
New EU Data Protection rules mean that we are asking you to confirm that we can continue to communicate with you by email. Please OPT IN to continue to receive this newsletter, invitations to our events and surveys. If you don't OPT IN after 25th May no further communications will be sent to you by AFBI.
