Crichton Royal Farm

The main aim of the Dairy Research and Innovation Centre is to develop, implement and provide information from sustainable breeding and management systems for dairy cattle. Critical objectives include finding ways to improve the health and welfare of UK dairy herds and measuring different systems' effects on the environment.

Two contrasting systems are examined over 5-year periods, with the current system comparison comparing a Standard Energy diet (roughly 1.5 tonnes of concentrates per cow per annum) with a High Energy diet (roughly 5.5 tonnes of concentrates per cow per annum). The cows on each system are of either high (Select) or moderate (Control) genetic merit, giving effectively four herds of approximately 50 cows each across the two systems:

• Control cows – Standard Energy diet
• Select cows – Standard Energy diet
• Control cows – High Energy diet
• Select Cows – High Energy diet

All the data collected from the systems experiment are stored on the central project database, where it can be accessed by many scientists and students. Information learned from the work is regularly imparted to groups of farmers, vets, interested industry parties and government stakeholders, as well as being published in academic journals and presented at conferences.