Options for addressing protein under-nutrition in Northern Australian cattle

Summary

​This project supported a mid-career researcher at The University of Queensland (UQ) to build and maintain capacity in ruminant nutrition research for the northern Australian beef cattle industry. The project required that the researcher conduct and report on at least five experiments over five years addressing the issue of under-nutrition in northern Australian cattle. The researcher was required to obtain funding for the experiments through competitive funding schemes from various research funding bodies [MLA and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)].

Over the five year term of the project the researcher has been involved in five additional MLA funded projects and six ACIAR funded projects, some of which are ongoing. The range of research undertaken includes experiments examining the response of various classes of livestock to diets or management practices within northern Australian and south-east Asian beef cattle production systems, on-farm monitoring of cattle production systems in south-east Asian countries and increasing the understanding of the underlying biology behind animal responses, specifically gene expression studies, across a range of ruminant nutrition models.

The researcher has authored or co-authored 13 refereed publications, 28 abstracts in conference proceedings, 8 final reports and 1 book chapter, and contributed to 1 monograph over the five-year term of the project.