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BetterFarming.comBetter Farming
October 2016
FAR
AFIELD
A
University of
Wisconsin-
Madison
hypocalcaemia
prevention
study revealed
in the July issue
of
Journal of
Endocrinology
that
cows injected daily with serotonin
produced more calcium. Hypocalcae-
mia, a metabolic disorder, decreases
pregnancy rates in dairy cows and
affects calcium levels.
In an email, Laura Hernandez, one
of the study’s authors and assistant
professor of lactation biology,
described serotonin as “critical for
calcium uptake and transport into
the mammary gland,” and for “aiding
in calcium mobilization throughout
the body.” In Holsteins, serotonin
raised blood calcium but in Jerseys
the neurotransmitter generated more
milk calcium. Investigation is needed
to determine why the difference exists
and whether serotonin can prevent
hypocalcaemia in cows, Hernandez
said.
BF
Study discovers happy cows make more calcium
New research out of the
University of
Illinois
may shake up some of your
preconceptions of the age of nitrogen
in your corn and soybean fields.
Praveen Kumar
, a civil and envi-
ronmental engineering professor, and
Dong Kook Woo
, a graduate student,
found the nitrogen in soybean fields
typically had a lower average age than
that in corn fields. This finding is
perhaps counterintuitive, as nitrogen
is typically applied to corn and not
beans. In a university release, Woo
attributed the lower average age of
nitrogen in soybean fields to soybeans
taking up old nitrogen.
Kumar and Woo also expected the
age of the nitrogen would increase as
it travelled lower into the soil. They
observed, however, a “relatively
higher nitrogen age in the upper
layers, compared with the age of the
nitrate that dissolves in water, which
doesn’t have that barrier and can
migrate down through the soil.” The
researchers attributed this finding to
the accumulation of ammonium, one
form of nitrogen, in the topsoil.
“Ammonium has a
positive charge, which
adheres to the soil
particles and prevents it
from leaching to the
deeper layers,”Woo
explained in the release.
Their research was
based on studies of the
corn-corn-soybean rotation Midwest-
ern U.S. farmers typically use.
The paper was published in the
July issue of
Water Resources Re-
search
.
BF
The age of nitrogen in fields
Australian researchers
have developed a new
variety of wheat to
give the country’s
producers an advan-
tage in the global
markets, according to
SeedWorld
.
Buyers examine protein content
when purchasing wheat for flour.
Australian farmers, particularly on
sandy soils, apply nitrogen to boost
protein.
Even with this fertilizer applica-
tion, Australian wheat’s protein
content often isn’t high enough to
satisfy its biggest customer, the South
East Asia market.
According to the
Australian
Broadcasting Corporation
, Tungsten,
the new variety researchers at
Mur-
doch University
developed, achieves
14 per cent or more protein using less
nitrogen than older varieties.
Tungsten will be commercially
available in Australia in 2017.
BF
New Aussie wheat variety boasts more protein
Researchers in the Netherlands are
studying new ways to address soil
degradation with the use of healthy
soil microbes.
In some test plots,
Martijn
Brezemer
, a biologist at the Nether-
lands Institute of Ecology, and his
team removed unproductive topsoil.
Next, they applied a centimetre or
two of transplanted soil to the
remaining subsoil.
In other plots the researchers
applied the same small layer of
transplanted topsoil directly on the
unproductive topsoil.
In both sets of plots, the “new”
topsoil came from either grassland or
heathland areas.
The transplanted soil was a catalyst
for transformation which gradually
helped to shift the plots towards the
donor grassland or heathland ecosys-
tems. (The research was conducted
over six years.) Results were most
pronounced when the unproductive
topsoil was removed.
Brezemer’s work contributes to
ongoing attempts to understand soil
microbes.
The study was published in
Nature
Plants
in July.
BF
Topsoil transplant triggers transformation of unproductive soil: study
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