Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence Offers Gate to Plate Beef Cattle Research

A Professor with the University of Saskatchewan says the new Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence takes beef research all the way from the feedlot to the consumers’ plate

by Bruce Cochrane FarmScape Online

Located on 15 quarters of land southeast of Saskatoon at Clavet, the Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence includes a two thousand head cattle feeding operation, cattle research facility and buildings for drying forages, a 350 head cow-calf research facility and forage research plots.

Dr. Terry Fonstad, a Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, says associated with that is the original Floral research site, which is used by the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, and the feed center and the food centre located at the University of Saskatchewan.

“The Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence is a collaboration to bring together the complete beef research cycle”

 

“The Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence is a collaboration or an effort to bring together the complete beef research cycle right from genetics through cow-calf and forage and cattle feeding to actually a food science research.

“It goes right from the genetics work with the calves and the cattle through to the forage.

“Which forages are better, which ones are better in drought situations, which ones are putting more pounds on the animals, what kind of water management is going on beneath those forages?

“So there’s instrumentation in real time that shows us moisture profiles below those forages.

“Those calves then go into the feedlot on feeding trials in the feedlot. The feedlot then has research set up for groundwater monitoring, manure management, crop utilization of manure, those kinds of things.

“Then those calves, when they’re done, will be butchered and the carcasses processed through the food centre to look at food quality.

“The whole complete cycle is actually able to be studied in collaboration between scientists at one site, which I think is unique.”

Dr. Fonstad says more information, including contact information is available through the University of Saskatchewan web site or search “Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence.”

Source: FarmScape Online