Bridging the gap between livestock and grain research is the purpose of
CLIP.
The Crop Livestock Interface Project, funded by the Saskatchewan
government, is something new to the University of Saskatchewan and
Canada, said Dave Christensen, who manages the project,
He said it brings scientists and researchers from across the
agricultural community together in an effort to meet common goals and
integrate their work.
It was conceived in part from scientists’ frustration that research
Read Also
Powdery mildew can be combine fire risk
Dust from powdery mildew can cause fires in combines.
proposals dealing with livestock and plants and even agricultural
engineering would be bounced between funding groups, each believing
that combined projects were properly the work of another discipline.
The result was worthy projects ignored by government and academic
funders.
Livestock and feed producers may be one of the biggest early
beneficiaries of the project. CLIP is creating a database of
nutritional information about 150 small grains, 150 forages and 150
novel feeds. It is hoped 50 to 60 factors of each will be included in
the database.
“Not only will we expand our knowledge of these feed sources and be
able to provide to producers and each other the information, but we
will be able to make some performance predictions that we can provide
plant breeders,” said Christensen.
CLIP also has funding to pursue complex chemical and genetic analysis
of feed grains using tools such as the University of Saskatchewan’s
synchrotron to better understand where and how to breed improvements
into feed grain and forage plants.
This will bring geneticists together with other plant scientists,
agronomists and animal nutritionists.
“The University of Saskatchewan is one of the only places this could
take place. A veterinary medical school, a broad plant breeding
program, a big agriculture school, agricultural engineering, economics,
federal, provincial and industrial researchers – all in the same
place,” he said.
