Mariann took a trip to State College, Pennsylvania to assist two groups using AMTS.Cattle.Pro academically. It was beautiful weather for the drive and she spent an enjoyable time on campus teaching the program.
Mariann first met with Dr. Alex Hristov’s advanced dairy science class to introduce them to the program. With the help of Dr. Hristov and the IT department of Penn State the program was installed on 30 lab computers. The 25 students in the Thursday afternoon lab will be spending 5 weeks studying nutrition. Comprised primarily of students in their final year and grad students, the class is exposed to various ration formulation platforms through Dr. Hristov’s class. Mariann guided the students in creating a ration in the program. The group then worked on an exercise designed to help them better understand the effects of environment, activity, animal differences, and feed parameters have on predicted performance. The students will also have the opportunity to use .Pro on their personal computers for a year.
Dr Alex Hristov
Advanced Dairy Management Class
While at Penn State Mariann also met with Michel Baldin, a PhD student with Dr Kevin Harvatine. Michel is using the program to analyze diets in his research. He provided the information below about his studies.
Michel Baldin
“I was born in Santa Catarina, a state in the south of Brazil. I grew up in a small farm that had vineyards and a small herd of pasture-based Holstein cows. My passion for animals led me to earn a BS (2010) and MS (2012) in animal science from Santa Catarina University – Brazil.
I joined Dr. Harvatine’s lab in the Fall of 2013 and my research sits around the dietary regulation of milk fat synthesis, particularly, the interrelationship between rumen fat metabolism (biohydrogenation) and yields of milk fat.
In this upcoming project, we will be comparing the ability of different methionine sources to reduce the risk for biohydrogenation-induced milk fat depression in high producing cows. AMTS will help us to better predict methionine (and other AA as well) requirements from the cows as well as methionine supply from the diet, and ultimately, determine the amount of methionine (and other AA) that needs to be supplemented.”
The Academic Initiative offers the program and accompanying support materials without charge to help educators teach. The program is discounted when used in research. It was a good session and Mariann enjoyed the opportunity to see the implementation of the initiative and gain valuable feedback for updating the packet materials. She did not see any football–she understands Penn State is somewhat famous for their team. Coming from Cornell she does not even know what that means…
We are very excited and pleased to help both educators and researchers advance knowledge and understanding of ruminant nutrition as part of our Academic Initiative. If you are interested in knowing more about email mariann@agmodelsystems.com
