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Category Archives: Livestock

UF/IFAS expert: Promising results from papaya for parasite-plagued goats

Topic(s): Livestock, Research

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — One of the world’s fastest growing agricultural industries, goat farming, is plagued by deadly intestinal parasites, particularly the barber’s pole worm – a pest that poses great danger to the goat-farming industry in the Southeastern U.S. and other parts of the world.

Improper use of commercial medicines has helped make the parasites resistant to many deworming drugs.

But recent research by the University of Florida’s Animal Sciences department may be closing in on a solution. Although researchers say it needs more study, they’ve recently found papaya seeds to be an inexpensive, alternative method for ridding goats of their parasitic passengers.

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UF/IFAS Family Day at the Dairy Farm offers education, fun

Topic(s): Agriculture, Conservation, Economics, Environment, Extension, Families and Consumers, Food Safety, IFAS, Livestock, New Technology, Pollution, Research

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Milk may be sold in supermarkets, but it comes from cows – that’s the lesson being offered this Saturday at Family Day at the Dairy Farm, a free open-house event at the University of Florida’s dairy farm in Hague, 20 minutes northwest of Gainesville.

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., dairy researchers and Extension specialists with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences will showcase the farm’s operations and explain how their work helps commercial dairy producers. For directions, see http://tinyurl.com/d3a5626.

Visitors can watch cows being fed and milked, learn about cattle nutrition and health-care practices, pet live calves, tour barns, sample dairy products and make their own butter.

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UF/IFAS Family Day at the Dairy Farm returns March 16, public invited

Topic(s): Agriculture, Economics, Families and Consumers, Food Safety, IFAS, Livestock, New Technology, Nutrition, Research

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Last year’s open house at the University of Florida dairy farm was so successful that organizers were “moo-tivated” to repeat the event, which returns to Alachua County on Saturday, March 16.

Free and open to the public, Family Day at the Dairy Farm takes place 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Hague, 20 minutes northwest of Gainesville just off U.S. Highway 441. For directions, see http://tinyurl.com/d3a5626.

Visitors can watch cows being milked, pet calves, walk through free-stall barns, make butter, see farming equipment and learn how UF research helps keep dairy cows happy, healthy and productive. There will even be free samples of dairy products, a giant cow statue to admire, and a hayride to transport visitors to and from the parking area.

Local actor Houston Wells will reprise his role as President Abraham Lincoln, greeting visitors and posing for photos. It will be one of his final appearances commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, a bill Lincoln signed in 1862 to establish the land-grant university system. UF is the state’s flagship land-grant university.

Organizers hope to exceed last year’s attendance, which was about 800 people, said dairy Extension specialist Albert De Vries, an associate professor with UF’s animal sciences department.

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UF/IFAS faculty aid Fort White teens in building aquaponics system to raise fish, vegetables

Topic(s): Agriculture, Aquaculture, Conservation, Crops, Environment, Extension, IFAS, Livestock, New Technology

Aquaponics news story. UF/IFAS Photo by Marisol Amador

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Some teenagers want a car; Tiffy Murrow wants to feed the world.

The Fort White High School junior has spent almost two years learning to farm fish, with help from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and her school’s agriculture adviser, Wayne Oelfke.

Murrow started with glass aquaria and tropical fish, then she graduated to a 750-gallon tank housed in an equipment building on the school campus. It holds 140 tilapia destined for a soup kitchen in nearby Lake City when they reach optimum size, about one pound.

But this project is about more than fish.

Soon, Murrow and collaborator Kaila Cheney, a FWHS sophomore, will begin growing vegetables on floating platforms in another part of the system, a shallow pool where water circulates. The crops may include cucumber, tomato, lettuce and basil. With roots dangling in the water, the plants will draw moisture and nutrients from the pool, reducing the need for fertilizer and helping maintain the ammonia and nitrogen levels tilapia need to stay healthy.

The technology is called aquaponics, a sustainable method for raising food where farmland is scarce. Increasingly common in Third World countries, aquaponics is still a novel concept to many Americans. But in Fort White, Murrow has plans to spread the word by holding open house events and encouraging others to investigate aquaponics as a possible project, hobby or business opportunity.

“We want to see if we can make a difference,” Murrow said. “This is a model showing how you can grow a large amount of food in a small amount of space. We want to set up the same kind of thing with fish ponds and incorporate it into Third World countries.”

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Beneficial bacteria control effects of Southern corn rust, aflatoxin in silage, UF/IFAS researchers find

Topic(s): Agriculture, Biocontrols, Environment, Families and Consumers, Food Safety, Livestock

 

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Corn silage is an important dairy feed but it sometimes harbors an unwelcome addition – Southern corn rust, a fungal disease that thrives under hot, humid conditions.

 The fungus responsible, Puccinia polysora, seems harmless to cattle. However, a Southern corn rust infection can severely reduce the yield and nutritional value of corn plants and inhibit their fermentation to silage.

 Worse, it damages corn tissue, providing a gateway for opportunistic microbes such as Aspergillis. This genus of fungi includes species that produce a toxic compound called aflatoxin, which can harm or even kill cattle that eat contaminated silage. Aflatoxin can also be transmitted to the milk of cows that eat contaminated foods; in people aflatoxin can cause cancer, other diseases and death.

 Now, researchers with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences have found a way to control negative effects of Southern corn rust on silage and prevent aflatoxin accumulation, by inoculating the silage with beneficial bacteria.

 The study was published in the September issue of Journal of Dairy Science.

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UF/IFAS experts find feral hog control efforts often fail, now investigating why

Topic(s): Agriculture, Environment, Forestry, Invasive Species, Livestock, Pests

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Feral hogs wreak havoc on Florida’s natural areas but a new University of Florida study shows that control measures often fail; now, researchers are investigating how the animals outwit removal efforts.

“Feral hogs are definitely one of our more noticeable invasive animal issues on the Treasure Coast,” said Ken Gioeli, a St. Lucie County extension agent. “People have been struggling to deal with the populations and we want to offer them better options.”

The study appears in the summer issue of the journal Aquatics, a publication of the Florida Aquatic Plant Management Society.

Florida has the nation’s second-highest population of feral hogs, after Texas. The animals are especially common north and west of Lake Okeechobee, and in the coastal Big Bend area, Gioeli said. They roam in groups and damage forest ecosystems by rooting in the soil and wallowing in shallow water. It’s believed that feral hog damage costs landowners and agricultural producers millions of dollars nationwide.

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UF dairy farm to host open house March 24, public invited

Topic(s): Agriculture, Announcements, IFAS, Livestock, Research

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — North Florida residents are invited to tour a working dairy farm and learn about University of Florida research at Family Day at the Dairy Farm, held 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 24 at UF’s dairy farm in Hague.

The free event, sponsored by UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences with support from Florida Dairy Farmers, includes an opportunity to watch cows being milked and fed, visit free-stall barns, pet a calf, see farm equipment, sample dairy products and talk with UF scientists about ongoing research to improve cow health and milk production.

Organizers hope to give visitors a better understanding of dairy production and the importance of agriculture to Florida’s economy, said Albert De Vries, an associate professor with UF’s animal sciences department.

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UF researches legal control for contagious, ornamental fish pest

Topic(s): Aquaculture, Extension, Livestock, Pests, Research

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The lack of legal ways to eliminate fish lice is frustrating for goldfish and koi enthusiasts, but a University of Florida study in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health reports that a cure is in the works.

Fish lice, which are actually crustaceans, use their mouths to attach to fish and feed on blood and bodily fluids, causing tissue damage, anemia and sometimes fatal wounds.

Lice infestations are a problem for goldfish and koi owners as well as producers in Florida’s approximately $33 million tropical fish industry. A single pet koi can be valued as much as $100,000, depending on color, pattern and size, and products that keep them healthy are in demand.

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South American beetle released by UF researchers benefits Florida ranchers

Topic(s): Biocontrols, Entomology and Nematology, Invasive Species, Livestock

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Over the past two decades, Florida cattle ranchers have spent as much as $16 million a year doing battle with an invasive weed called tropical soda apple, known as TSA, that takes over pastures, elbowing out the forage grasses ranchers need for their cattle.

But a beetle released by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is taking a bite out of the problem by feeding on the weed and reducing its competitiveness. UF researchers describe the beetle’s success as a biological control agent in the current issue of the journal Florida Entomologist.

Gratiana boliviana, as the beetle is known to scientists, is a native of South America and the first biological control agent in North America to be used against TSA. The beetles are highly specific feeders whose voracious appetite is focused only on TSA but not on related plants such as eggplant, peppers or potatoes.

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New technique for vulture population estimates could aid control efforts, UF researcher says

Topic(s): Biocontrols, Livestock, New Technology, Pests

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For months, Erik Anderson tried to persuade a flock of vultures to stop roosting at Santa Fe College’s main campus in northwest Gainesville. In the end, the vultures won. Years later, he sees them as he motors down Interstate 75 to work.

“I don’t fight them anymore,” says Anderson, the college’s director of facilities operations. “It was a no-win situation for us.”

It’s a common story, says Michael Avery, a U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist affiliated with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Avery is one of the nation’s top vulture management experts. He and U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service colleagues just published a paper on a mathematical formula that can help determine how many vultures can be taken from a local population without jeopardizing its long-term viability. The article is in May’s issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management.

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