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Sortenliste Biokräuter für 2023-2024

Die Präsentation zeigt das Potential und die Herausforderungen bei der Anwendung des Living Lab / Reallabor Ansatzes in Forschungsprojekten.

Systematic separation of cow and calf early after calving is common practice in both organic and conventional dairy farming. The main objective of this paper was to develop different scenarios for dam-calf contact and quantify their effects on milk uptake by the calf and environmental sustainability of the produced milk and meat from these systems. Scenarios were set up of organic dairy systems to analyze the effect of different dam-calf systems with either half-time or full-time contact between cow and calf for 28, 51 or 91 days. Based on experience from practice and literature, we assumed a total milk uptake of 1,110 kg ECM milk with part-time contact and 1,207 kg ECM milk with fulltime contact over 91 days. These scenarios were compared to traditional calf rearing systems with direct separation after birth and milk feeding from a bucket with low or high milk feeding levels of 460 and 630 kg ECM, respectively, in the first 91 days. The scenarios were analyzed at a milk production level of 9,000 kg ECM per cow per year and with a sensitivity analysis covering yield levels of 7,000, 11,000 and 13,000 kg ECM per cow per year. At a production level of 9,000 kg ECM per year and full-time dam-calf contact throughout the milk period, only 85% of the milk produced could be delivered to the dairy company, compared to 93% when a low-level of milk is fed from a bucket. This means that there were fewer kg products to bear the environmental impacts, and hence the carbon footprint and land use from production per kg of ECM milk and meat was increased by between 5 and 9%, while the corresponding increase in impact at the highest yield level of 13,000 kg ECM was only between 4 and 6%. Besides environmental sustainability of cow-calf contact systems, the broader context of such systems

Context: Excess dairy calves in Switzerland are commonly shifted at a young age to specialised fattening farms for veal or beef production and are exposed to pathogens against which they may have insufficient immunity. Excessive administration of antibiotics to these calves contributes to the development of bacterial resistance, which is detrimental for human and animal health. Intervention strategies are needed to motivate farmers to adopt alternative methods for maintaining calf health. Aims: This study was aimed at identifying individual and systemic enablers and barriers driving farmer behaviour in terms of calf health management and antibiotic use. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with veal, beef and/or dairy farmers who breed and take care of future fattening calves in the first weeks of life. Data were analysed according to key constructs. Key results: Measures to enhance calf health included keeping calves on birth farms until they have developed sufficient active immunity, providing sufficient milk, drenching with colostrum, and hygiene-focused stable management practices. Dairy farmers perceived excess dairy breed calves to be a financial liability, so are reluctant to commit resources to maintaining their health. Systemic barriers to reducing antibiotic use in specialised, large-scale veal-fattening systems, including increased mortality, high costs of veterinary treatment, and low profit margins causing farmers to seek economies of scale, mean that there is little potential for significantly reducing antibiotic use within the existing system. Furthermore, unwillingness to seek herd management advice hinders the application of alternative practices for maintaining calf health with reduced antibiotic use in veal production. Conclusions: The main barriers to antibiotic reduction in veal production are systemic; therefore, strategies to reduce antibiotic use should aim for a system that encourages farmers to prioritise calf health, such as impl

The rearing of dairy calves, whether in conventional or organic farming, is questioned in society, particularly due to its lack of naturalness caused by the limited contact between age groups. Foster cow systems, where foster cows stay with calves in low-input pasture-based systems, have been implemented in France since 2010. The aims of this study were to explain farmers’ motivations for establishing their cow-calf contact systems and to describe the ways in which they have implemented them, in terms of daily practice and as part of their organic dairy farm. A documented investiga-tion of the introduction of these rearing systems in France was carried out. In addition, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted between January and March 2019 on 20 organic farms that had imple-mented this practice. Farmers’ perceptions of the practice were explored through content analysis of the interview responses. Calves were sepa-rated from their dam after an average of 4.5 days. The bonding phase was conducted by leaving them together for 2–7 days in small bonding pens. Weaning and separation took place either simultaneously or gradually, between the age of 4–10 months. The farmers perceived these systems as working very well and being easy to implement on grazing-based farms, as well as ensuring good profitability and working conditions. According to the farmers, the calves appeared to have high growth rates and good health status, enabling the first calving at a younger age. These rearing systems seemed to be compatible with an agroecological transition.

The global risk for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can be reduced by reducing antimicrobial use (AMU). Veterinarians are one of the key actors in relation to AMU in livestock, and understanding the dynamics of veterinary treatment and prescription is central to achieving AMU reduction. Veterinary AMU decisions are influenced by a complex pattern of both individual and contextual factors. In this study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 Danish cattle veterinarians to investigate their perspectives on AMU and current practices in a national context with low use and extensive legal control. We found that personal experiences and emotions, rather than scientific evidence, guided some veterinarians when making AMU choices. Furthermore, less-experienced veterinarians felt pressure to prescribe according to colleagues' and farmers' preferences for certain antimicrobials. We found that changes in Danish legislation seemed to have introduced hesitancy and a lack of motivation within the veterinary profession, and that AMR was perceived as an abstract threat not applicable to the veterinarians' daily professional decision making. We concluded that the lack of field-generated research of local relevance nourished a culture in which AMU choices are built on personal experience rather than scientific evidence, which also diminished newly educated veterinarians' self-confidence in relation to their AMU choices. Future research should focus on developing locally relevant research on optimal AMU choices and AMR, and the implications of extensive legal control of AMU in livestock farming should be further investigated to find a balance on the path to reducing AMU.

Under natural conditions, most parturient cows seek visual cover or seclude themselves from the herd when calving becomes imminent. Studies on calving site selection of dairy cows housed indoors show that predominantly older and dominant cows calve in secluded areas. This study aimed to investigate whether cows distance themselves further from herd members under spacious outdoor conditions and whether artificial hides on a pasture motivate cows to seek visual isolation from the herd. One hundred eighty-two Danish Holstein cows were allocated to 1 of 13 groups of 14 cows according to expected calving date. In 2 paddocks (each 75 × 150 m), 5 zones (75 m × 30 m) were defined; zone 0 contained the feeding and shade area, and zone 4 bordered an area with trees. Weekly and according to calving date, a group of 14 cows was moved either to a paddock that had 12 hides distributed evenly throughout zones 1 to 4 (7 groups) or to a paddock without hides (6 groups). The hides were wooden structures (3.3 m long × 1.0 m wide × 1.2 m high) that the cows could hide behind. One hundred seven cows calved within 14 d of having been moved to the paddock, and 82 of these (38 primiparous and 44 multiparous), and their calves, were included in the study. From 3 h before until 3 h after calving, the location, posture, and behavior of cows were recorded continuously from video recordings. In addition, location, posture, and behavior of the calves were recorded for the first 3 h after birth. Continuous variables were analyzed by linear mixed effects models, whereas binary data were analyzed using mixed effects logistic regression. The presence of hides did not affect selection of calving location in the paddock, but more primiparous than multiparous cows calved in zone 4; that is, furthest away from the feeding area. Before calving, primiparous cows were more likely to be positioned in zone 4 and less likely to approach and contact herd members. After calving, primiparous cows and their calve

Systematic separation of cow and calf early after calving is common practice in both organic and conventional dairy farming. The main objective of this paper was to develop different scenarios for dam-calf contact and quantify their effects on milk uptake by the calf and environmental sustainability of the produced milk and meat from these systems. Scenarios were set up of organic dairy systems to analyze the effect of different dam-calf systems with either half-time or full-time contact between cow and calf for 28, 51 or 91 days. Based on experience from practice and literature, we assumed a total milk uptake of 1,110 kg ECM milk with part-time contact and 1,207 kg ECM milk with fulltime contact over 91 days. These scenarios were compared to traditional calf rearing systems with direct separation after birth and milk feeding from a bucket with low or high milk feeding levels of 460 and 630 kg ECM, respectively, in the first 91 days. The scenarios were analyzed at a milk production level of 9,000 kg ECM per cow per year and with a sensitivity analysis covering yield levels of 7,000, 11,000 and 13,000 kg ECM per cow per year. At a production level of 9,000 kg ECM per year and full-time dam-calf contact throughout the milk period, only 85% of the milk produced could be delivered to the dairy company, compared to 93% when a low-level of milk is fed from a bucket. This means that there were fewer kg products to bear the environmental impacts, and hence the carbon footprint and land use from production per kg of ECM milk and meat was increased by between 5 and 9%, while the corresponding increase in impact at the highest yield level of 13,000 kg ECM was only between 4 and 6%. Besides environmental sustainability of cow-calf contact systems, the broader context of such systems

The main theme of the conference is “Organic Animal Husbandry systems – Ways to improvement”. The organizers have taken into account the diversity of organic and sustainable animal husbandry systems. Special sessions are offered about improving organic cattle systems; sustainable livestock rearing and breeding systems; product and process quality; animal health management and the use of bioactive medicinal plants; sustainable rearing and breeding systems for pigs; and finally the future of animal husbandry. In small thematic workshops recommendations for development and research are discussed and will be presented in a stakeholder session at the Organic World Congress. The Pre-Conference has been organised with project coordinators of five European Union CORE ORGANIC livestock research projects and other EU funded organic projects. This conference offers a platform to present their preliminary research results.

The biogeochemical functioning of soils (e.g., soil carbon stabilization and nutrient cycling) is determined at the interfaces of specific soil structures (e.g., aggregates, particulate organic matter (POM) and organo‐mineral associations). With the growing accessibility of spectromicroscopic techniques, there is an increase in nano‐ to microscale analyses of biogeochemical interfaces at the process scale, reaching from the distribution of elements and isotopes to the localization of microorganisms. A widely used approach to study intact soil structures is the fixation and embedding of intact soil samples in resin and the subsequent analyses of soil cross‐sections using spectromicroscopic techniques. However, it is still challenging to link such microscale approaches to larger scales at which normally bulk soil analyses are conducted. Here we report on the use of laboratory imaging Vis–NIR spectroscopy on resin embedded soil sections and a procedure for supervised image classification to determine the microscale soil structure arrangement, including the quantification of soil organic matter fractions. This approach will help to upscale from microscale spectromicroscopic techniques to the centimetre and possibly pedon scale. Thus, we demonstrate a new approach to integrate microscale soil analyses into pedon‐scale conceptual and experimental approaches.

Under natural conditions, most parturient cows seek visual cover or seclude themselves from the herd when calving becomes imminent. Studies on calving site selection of dairy cows housed indoors show that predominantly older and dominant cows calve in secluded areas offering visual cover. This study aimed to investigate if cows distance themselves further from herd members under spacious outdoor conditions and if artificial hides on a pasture motivate cows to seek visual isolation from the herd.

Early separation of cow and calf is still common practice on dairy farms. In recent years, interest in mother-bonded calf rearing practices has increased. They are considered to be animal-friendly, labour-saving and health-promoting for the calf. However, these systems are challenging, e.g. regarding the cow's willingness to let down milk or the pain of separation after establishing a social bonding. We tested the hypothesis that calves allowed dam suckling (DS) twice a day would benefit concerning weight gain, health-related traits and show fewer behavioural disorders (oral manipulations) compared to bucket fed (BF) group mates. Furthermore, we investigated the impact of cow-calf contact compared to bucket feeding on selected immune parameters in calf blood and cow milk.

This study aimed at describing the iron status of piglets at weaning in French indoor and outdoor farms. It was carried out in the spring of 2019 in 20 organic farms located in the West of France. In each farm, approximately 30 piglets (half males and females) from 4 to 7 litters were blood sampled. In total, 565 piglets of 42.1±3.2 days of age, weighing 12.0±3.0 kg live weight were bled at 1.1±1.7 days from weaning (mean±SD). Among the 11 outdoor and 9 indoor organic farms that were investigated, iron injection was used in most of indoor farms (200 mg: 8 farms, 100 mg: 1 farm, no supplementation: 1 farm), while in outdoor systems, mostly no supplementation was performed (200 mg: 1 farm, no supplementation: 10 farms). In comparison with the indoor/iron injected piglets, the outdoor/non-supplemented piglets had a greater blood haemoglobin concentration (118 vs. 105 ± 2 g/L, mean±SE, P < 0.001) and a bigger red blood cell volume (60 vs. 56 ± 1 fl, P < 0.01), indicating a better iron status. In the only indoor farm that did not use iron supplementation, these two variables were low (81 ± 3 g/L and 48 ± 1 fl, respectively), suggesting an iron deficiency. To conclude, outdoor piglets find a sufficient amount of iron in their natural environment, probably by foraging and ingesting soil, to fulfil their needs. Indoors, an iron supplementation is necessary, but a single intramuscular iron injection, besides its controversial acceptability in organic farming, might be suboptimal to prevent anaemia in piglets. Thus, there is a need for finding alternative solutions to iron injection for newborn piglets.

This presentation summarises some of the changing perspectives of and transitions to cow–calf contact systems, including identifying the challenges and benefits of the various types of systems, in particular dam-rearing and nurse-cow systems. No dairy system in the study countries was initially designed to enable cow–calf contact, but a multitude of systems allowing cow–calf contact have since been developed based on existing farm structures. Interviews and case studies show that the development requires significant changes in practices, attitudes and farm structures, all of which require a lot of investment. Research over the last two to three years in this area has considered several potential ways in which organic dairy systems could encompass forms of cow–calf contact. Whilst on the one hand these studies have acknowledged the ‘naturalness’ of cow and calf systems, including the motivation behind them and the need for the cow and calf to be together, ‘unnatural elements’ have also been highlighted, for example the high milk yields, deep udders and large herd sizes in today’s dairy sector. Some issues remain unresolved and the future organic dairy sector will be required to find further solutions. One major issue is that of male calves, which are often removed from their dam early and in an abrupt way. This raises questions as to whether the current development of dam-rearing and other types of cow–calf contact systems can be seen as niche innovations, or as part of a larger change in the socio-technological landscape around dairy farming and calves. These changes are still ongoing in terms of organising new systems that are friendly and less restrictive for cows and calves, and could potentially be part of a larger transition at the systemic dairy farming level.

Within the CORE Organic Cofund project POWER, European stakeholders and scientists identified elements to improve animal welfare and reduce environmental impact in concrete outdoor runs for organic growing-finishing pigs. The selected innovations included 1) roughage, 2) showers, and 3) rooting areas. We evaluated the effectiveness of these innovations on nine commercial organic pig farms in three European countries (Austria, Switzerland and Denmark). This multi-centre study requires a common approach to ensure the best possible standardisation regarding experimental set-up and data collection whilst acknowledging differences between countries and farms. Assessment protocols including animal-based (clinical and behavioural) indicators were jointly developed. To ensure comparable results, training and inter-observer reliability testing took place in on-farm sessions and via online training and showed acceptable to good agreement. Preliminary descriptive results of the three experiments are presented for clinical indicators, pig faecal soiling and use of the outdoor run. Most clinical indicators showed a low prevalence across all farms and experiments. For pig soiling, a potential effect was only observed in pigs with access to showers; they were slightly cleaner. The use of outdoor runs was generally high and seemed to be influenced by the improvement measures. We conclude that multi-centre on-farm studies are suitable for ensuring external validity as an important step in implementing improvement measures. However, the high effort for training and potential trade-offs between the highest possible standardisation and