By Tony Benny for Our Land and Water National Science Challenge (CC BY-4.0)
When LIC national FarmWise manager Edward Hardie heard about a Northland farmer who reported he'd increased milk production simply by upgrading his stock water, he was interested and believed it would be worth doing a scientific trial to test the concept.
Edward Hardie and the research team conducted the trial across four groups of 50 cows
"They filtered the water and used some chlorine tablets to get rid of the pathogens, and they understood they had an increase in production as a result," says Edward.
He researched the scientific literature, and although there were some indications that better quality water would increase production with meat breeds, there was little research to indicate the same was true for milk production.
With support from the Our Land and Water Rural Professional Fund, he set up a trial on DairyNZ's Lye research farm in Hamilton with research support from AgResearch, led by Karin Schutz. The aim of the project was to investigate if providing chlorinated town supply water would improve the milk yield of cows, compared to drinking unfiltered bore water that contained high concentrations of iron and manganese.
Four groups of cows (50 cows/group), managed on pasture, were offered either town supply water or unfiltered bore water for two weeks, before changing the water treatment for another two weeks in a cross-over design.
Two water treatments
The water from the research...
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