Department of Primary Industries (DPI) researcher, Dr Cameron Gourley said research – undertaken by scientists from DPI - had uncovered the secrets to understanding how nutrients behave over a diverse range of different dairy farm systems.

He said researchers will soon be sharing this valuable information with dairy farmers across Victoria.

“A key impact from the Accounting for Nutrients project has been the ability to specifically identify management options best suited for each unique dairy farm,” Dr Gourley said.

“Depending on the particular dairy production system, management options may include matching fertilisers to specific soil and climatic conditions, improving cow diets to balance protein and carbohydrates, and utilising the best fertiliser distributor on the farm - the cow - so the manure they produce is spread more effectively across the farm.”

Dr Gourley said nitrogen in dairy cattle feeds and farm fertilisers used for growing dairy pastures were key drivers for milk production but not all the nitrogen wais currently being utilised.

“For a typical dairy farm, every three per cent increase in nitrogen use efficiency is worth around $24,000 which equates to $70 million nationally.

“On Australian dairy farms efficiency is currently only 28 per cent but can range anywhere from 15 per cent up to 50 per cent,” he said.

Dr Gourley had led the Australia wide project, which involved 44 commercial dairy farms and 16 regional research teams.

“The main challenge for the project was identifying how nutrients could be better exploited as a productive resource instead of escaping into waterways or lost as greenhouse and other gases.

“We wanted to understand what puts some farmers at the upper end of the nutrient efficiency scale – in other words the fifty per centers – and why others were at the lower end.

“We explored a range of farms such as those with irrigation or rain feed systems, organic ones that don’t use traditional fertilisers, farms that grow both forages and grain to feed cows, and those that rely on feed purchased from other farms.

Dr Gourley said scenarios were modelled to show the triggers and relationships between cows, soil conditions, feed systems, manure and fertiliser, and milk outputs.

“We worked directly with dairy farmers and analysed data from milk production systems and we will soon be sharing this information with them through existing training and other company programs,” he said.