Leveraging genetics to reduce environmental impact while exploring opportunities for research collaboration is the focus for a group of visiting academics and students from Colorado State University.
Agricultural academics Mark and Kellie Enns are on a six-month visit to New Zealand to unearth opportunities for collaborative research that includes improving profitability for farmers through providing new genetic tools.
The couple have been linking closely with innovative tools being developed through the Informing New Zealand Beef (INZB) programme and looking into how genetics could support selection of lower-methane-emitting animals.
Societal focus on the environmental impacts of livestock production has expanded research and development designed to improve sustainability.
“While changes in animal management are often indicated, genetic improvement may provide an additional route towards improving the environmental footprint of livestock production,” Mark said.
The Ennses are in NZ with a group of Colorado State University (CSU) students who are spending a semester studying at Lincoln University.
They have also been visiting NZ farms and attending breed organisation events with Beef + Lamb NZ’s genetics specialist livestock, Jason Archer.
“I’m an animal breeding geneticist, mostly focusing on beef cattle,” Mark said.
“My focus is on giving breeders tools to make selection decisions which hopefully help make the next generation of progeny better.”
He said genetics programmes such as INZB are important because there’s opportunity in genetics to improve profitability for farmers in NZ and the United States.
“There are a lot of things we still don’t know about livestock, but we can potentially leverage genetics to reduce environmental impact.
“We have a lot going on back home around things like nitrogen excretion rates, from urine and faecal matter.”
CSU has a research programme looking at methane production in cattle.
NZ researchers are also doing a great job around methane production in sheep.
“We are seeing there are opportunities to improve profitability in performance and give consumers something they want while also changing the way animals impact the environment.”
Enns was raised on his family’s wheat and cattle operation in Oklahoma and has a doctorate in animal breeding and genetics.
During the 1990s, he spent several years working in NZ for what is now Pāmu’s genetics unit.
At CSU, he is a professor in the faculty of animal sciences and teaches courses in animal genetics and genetic improvement.
His primary research focus is on beef cattle adaptability, longevity, sustainability and genetic improvement in susceptibility to disease.
Last year, he was among the CSU academics who met with members of the INZB’s beef breeders study tour delegation that spent a day touring CSU’s research ranch in Wyoming.
He also serves on the board of the Beef Improvement Federation.
Kellie Enns is an associate professor at CSU, focused on training high school teachers in agriculture.
For the past 24 years, a cohort of CSU students has spent the US spring semester studying at Lincoln, accompanied by an academic mentor.
Kellie took on that role in 2016 and Mark was selected to be mentor for this year. They arrived in January with the 23 students and will head back to the US in June.
The Enns have been taking the opportunity to visit farms and attend field days.
“Visiting farms has been one of the highlights for us and people have been very welcoming.
“We joined the Angus tour, presented at Gore, attended a Hereford field day at Alexandra and visited a station in Mossburn.
“We are getting around and talking with people and hopefully facilitating some collaboration between CSU and BLNZ and some of the breeding organisations in NZ.
“We have some ideas of things we might do that would benefit both NZ and US farmers especially in the area of sustainability,” the couple said.
Mark is keen on expanding student potential as he bridges the unique overlap between critical industry challenges and utilising robust data and analytic tools to help solve problems.
Before returning home he will present an overview of the current state of beef production in the US, while also covering an overview of traits currently being investigated and of results indicating the potential for genetic improvement in beef production systems, in a forum session at Lincoln University.
