“My research is looking at two things. One is a payment system, how to reward farmers for higher lactose production and to give it an economic value. Second is how to determine the genetic parameters and the effects from selection. Among all that, lactose has both a value in milk powder and a cost – it determines volume, which adds to processing and transport costs.”
The project is partially funded by LIC’s Patrick Shannon Scholarship Programme and Dr Steve Davis, a lactation expert with LIC, is also involved.
“I’m a geneticist and both of my supervisors at Massey University, associate professor Nicolas Lopez-Villalobos and Dr Rebecca Hickson, are also geneticists, so we needed someone who knew about lactation to be on the team and that’s where Steve comes in,” Sneddon said.
Not that he doesn’t know a lot about cows himself. His parents and his four brothers all milk cows in Waikato on different farms and Sneddon funded his Massey Bachelor of Science degree majoring in animal science and genetics and a post graduate diploma in animal science by milking in his summer holidays. Dr Laurence Shalloo, from Moorepark Teagasc in Ireland, completes the research team.
A year into the three-and-a-half-year Phd, Sneddon has already discovered a link between protein and lactose yield.
“We seem to have found a quite promising correlation between the two traits, which is good, as farmers who have been chasing protein will also have been chasing lactose without realising it,” he said.
“We found it in quite a small data set, so now we have to back up our findings with a larger data set to see if it still holds true.”
He also wants to talk to farmers who supply to Synlait Milk, because the company already pays farmers for lactose production.
“I want to know what sort of breeding plans they have and are they looking for bulls that give greater lactose and if their cows are producing more lactose than the national herd.
“Also, is production suffering if they are choosing to breed for lactose? It’s quite an important question. We don’t want to lose production gains by choosing lactose over other traits and if it is added to the BWs it will have to reflect that.”
For more information email N.W.Sneddon@massey.ac.nz.
