Laser light used to measure feedlot's greenhouse gas emissions
DFA accelerates 3 cow technology companies
A 20-year-old technology is finally making its way onto a farm and is being used to measure methane and ammonia emissions on a cattle feedlot in Kansas.
SOURCE: Hanacek/NISTTwo optical frequency lasers were stitched together to make an ‘agricomb’ and used to detect greenhouse gases at parts-per-million levels. The technology is useful for measurement because it can detect multiple gases at one time where other methods can only measure one. It’s also more effective at measuring ammonia, researchers assert, because that particular gas is “sticky” and “difficult to measure with inlet-based measurement systems.”
Researchers intend to next apply the technology to pastured cattle to measure methane emissions in that setting.
Read more about this technology here.
DFA announces its 2021 accelerator class
Facial recognition software for cows, nanotechnologies to help treat mastitis and farm data aggregation software are the cow-tech-specific startup companies that are convening virtually for Dairy Farmers of America’s (DFA) 2021 CoLab Accelerator class.
“We’re really excited about this year’s class and the potential for their innovations,” says Doug Dresslaer, director of innovation at DFA. “It’s a very diverse group with some cutting-edge ag technologies that can help solve problems and benefit our farm family-owners as well as product-focused startups that are exploring new possibilities for dairy foods.”
The companies participating include:
CattleEye – Aims to deliver a deep learning, cloud-based AI platform that is designed to interpret visual imagery of cattle from industry standard web cameras. The platform autonomously identifies individual animals to extract insights including measuring gait, applying mobility scores to track lameness, and other positive welfare indicators. Learn more here.
DairyOffice – Designed as a central location for all data sets collected on a farm, this platform is built to integrate with herd management software and sensors, feed systems and ration formulation programs. The platform then manages the collection of data and provides various spreadsheets and other analytical tools that are updated with the collection of new data.
VERI Nano – Created a patent-pending nanotechnology that is utilized as a bovine teat sealant, disinfectant, antimicrobial coating, skincare and wound care treatment. It is aimed to be more cost-efficient and effective than current mastitis treatments. Learn more here.
The DFA CoLab Accelerator is a 90-day immersive program focused on dairy product innovations and new technologies for dairy farms. Learn more here.
—From a DFA press release
New barn monitoring sensor available
The milc group recently launched a new sensor-based system that alerts dairies if barn processes, like wash-up, fail. It is customizable to work on all dairy operations regardless of equipment provider. The new technology is called Watchdog.
The program uses temperature and pH sensors to detect system failures. It can send real-time, in-app notifications to producers to alert them of problems when they begin. Learn more here.
—From an milc group press release
Milking with more than 7 robots? Researchers need to hear from you
A team of researchers at UC–Davis, funded by the California Dairy Research Foundation, are gathering input from large-herd dairies that have adopted automatic milking. They’ve already talked to 20 such dairies. Preliminary results show that only 21% agreed AMS improved their herd profitability, and 50% of the respondents were neutral on this question.
“Our preliminary data highlight the importance and the need for more comprehensive economic studies focusing on AMS in large dairies,” says one of the researchers, Dr. Camila Lage.
Lage and her research colleagues would like to hear from more dairy farmers milking with more than seven robots. If you are one of those producers or know of one, they would appreciate if you could answer or share their online survey. It takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. Data collection is confidential, and it will only be used after aggregating with all participants’ data.
Free cybersecurity symposium to be held next week
To help address the ever-increasing threat of cyberattacks against the U.S. food industry, the second Cyberag Symposium on April 14 will bring together experts from the agriculture and cybersecurity sectors to discuss and discover solutions to security problems. Registration is free and the symposium will be held virtually.
While the agricultural industry has historically had little demand for cybersecurity, new innovation and advancements have left the sector in dire need of safeguarding from exploitation and hacking from outside influences.
Registration is now open here.
Walt, what have you been up to?
I attended PDPW’s Business Conference in March and moderated the Nexus Innovation stage.
Five dairy innovators were presented with awards. Read more about them here OR listen to their pitches in their own words on a podcast here.
Profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for two dairy herd sizes have IMPROVED since the beginning of March in profit projections from ZISK.
ZISK is a profit-projection smartphone app that tracks individual dairy farm profitability based on current CME board prices. Projections for a 1,000-cow dairy producing an average of 80 pounds of milk per cow and a 2,500-cow dairy producing an average of 85 pounds of milk per cow are provided.
12-month dairy farm profit projections (as of April 8, 2021):
1,000-cow dairy = $390,927 (UP about $89,800 since the beginning of March)
2,500-cow dairy = $1.714 million (UP about $297,000 since the beginning of March)