Assessment of the implications of including local agri-food industry by-products in cows’ diet on milk macromineral and trace elements profile
Department: Animal Sciences
Supervised by: Prof Sokratis Stergiadis
Using agri-food industry by-products (AFIBP) as animal feed diversifies and improve animal diet nutritional value, contributes to circular economy, reduce production costs and over-reliance on imported feeds, mitigates the environmental footprint and energy requirement for animal-derived food production and supports the local economies. However, introducing new feeds into dairy animal diets affects milk nutritional quality, including minerals. This can have nutritional implications for consumers because milk and dairy products are the main dietary source of several macrominerals and trace elements and any compositional modifications can affect the nutrient intakes at population level. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of feeding different local AFIBPs to dairy cows on milk mineral profile. In a completed animal trial, 12 dairy cows were allocated in four blocks of 3×3 Latin square change-over design with three 4-week experimental periods; and fed three experimental diets, based on typical dairy rations (Control; 60:40 forage:concentrate), and two diets where part of the concentrate was replaced either with 20% apple pomace or 18% hemp cake (on dry matter basis), by still meeting cows’ nutritional requirements. Feed and milk samples were collected throughout and at the end of each experimental period, respectively, from all cows. During the placement, milk samples will be acid-digested in a microwave digestor, diluted, and analysed by Inductively-Coupled-Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Statistical analysis (linear mixed models) will be performed to determine the effect of including local AFIBPs in dairy cow diets on milk macrominerals and essential trace elements profile, and their feed-to-milk transfer rates.
The student will work under the supervision of the School of Agriculture Policy and Development (SAPD)/Department of Animal Sciences (DAS) academics and researchers, in order to investigate the effect of including local agri-food industry by-products in dairy cow diets on milk mineral profile. The placement will be performed in three steps: (i) literature review on the importance of milk mineral profile on human health, the origin of milk minerals and the dietary factors that affect their concentrations, by using top-quality publications and other electronic resources provided via the University of Reading library (week 1) (ii) milk analysis, including acid-digestion of milk in microwave digestor and identification and quantification of milk minerals using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry facilities, in SAPD/DAS/CAF (week 2-5), and (iii) data organisation and statistical analysis (week 6). Sample collection and analytical methodologies required in the current project will be planned and developed will be made available to the student prior to the 6-week placement.
The student should have: an interest in dairy production and food science; good analytical skills and attention to detail; very good knowledge of MS Excel and MS Word; very good time-management and organisation skills; ability to work independently and as part of a team; reasonable laboratory skills and knowledge of statistics.
In undertaking this work, the student will develop a broad range of research skills, such as reviewing scientific literature, performing food analysis using mass spectrometry, dataset preparation and statistical analysis. As a result of working as part of the team alongside scientists of several disciplines, who have excellent knowledge of dairy production, animal nutrition, food science, and statistical analysis, as well as long term experience in supervising research projects, a set of multi-disciplinary employment skills will be gained. These include research, team-working, independent learning and working, time-management, report writing and oral presentation, organisational, problem solving, communication, analytical (laboratory-based) and statistical competencies. Work experience and undertaking responsibilities within highly advanced research teams and analytical environments, as well as co-authorship of future publications will boost employability of the student, both in an academic and industry career path, and will allow a deep understanding of what research careers are like. The student will receive appropriate training in laboratory analysis of milk and statistical analysis, to ensure the success of the placement, thus also allowing the development of transferable skills for enhanced performance in future academic research requirements (i.e. final dissertation). To ensure the success of the placement the student will be encouraged to develop and plan a day-to-day task completion schedule.
University of Reading, Whiteknights campus, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development (Agriculture Building).
Monday to Friday 9 am-5 pm with an hour daily for lunch
Monday 24 June 2024 - Friday 02 August 2024
The deadline to apply for this project is 5pm on Friday 26th April 2024. To make an application, please go to the following link and complete the application form: https://forms.office.com/e/LDxskffW5H. Please remember the title of the project (listed at the top of the page) as you will need this to locate the project on the application form.