Tasmania expands dairy methane reduction trials
Dairy research in Tasmania has been strengthened with the installation of new infrastructure at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture’s Dairy Research Facility in Elliott, enabling expanded trials aimed at reducing methane emissions from dairy cattle while maintaining productivity. The upgrade includes a new supplementary feed facility that allows researchers to deliver four different feed supplements directly to cows during milking, enabling precise testing of low-emission feed additives and feeding rates.
According to Dr James Hills, Livestock Production Centre Leader at the institute, the improved system allows long-term trials at a scale similar to commercial dairy farms while closely monitoring cow health and milk production. The facility upgrade also features a new feed silo, relocation of two existing silos, a feed head in the dairy, a disk mill, augers and a small shed, allowing grain to be processed on-site for the first time and reducing reliance on feed brought from mainland Australia.
The working research dairy currently milks around 350 cows across six separate mob systems, and the project was jointly funded by the Tasmanian Government, the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture and Fonterra. The facility is nationally recognised for pasture-based research and is the only Australian site capable of operating multi-herd “farmlet” research systems under commercial pasture conditions, supporting efforts to develop practical methane-reduction solutions for the dairy industry.
Source: Dairynews7x7 6th March 2026 Read full story here
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