Day 6: March 17th

Learning about forage research

Learning about South African dairy production

Group photo at the University of Pretoria dairy

Picture with an expert on forage plant ID.

What a great day!  We first visited the ARC- Animal Production, Range, and Forage Unit. The forage part of the ARC was mainly focusing on indigenous grasses and how to improve the native forage.  One of the main research projects that they are working on right now is improving teff (a grass) for both livestock and human consumption.  The interesting fact about teff is the fact that it can be used in the production of gluten free meals.  We also went out to see their nursery and saw the difference between irrigated and non-irrigated grasses.  At the ARC, we were able to see their library of genetic material found from plants in the Bushveld.  

After looking at the forage side, we went over to the Biosystem department to learn more about the biosystem that South Africa is a part of.  The main parts of the biosystem we looked at was the pests in the area and how they affected the environment.  In the Arachnology department, there was a total of 83,000 specimens of spiders and scorpions.  This department started in the 1950's with research on mites. The Nematology collection on worms was the largest collection in the world with around 70,000 samples.  The last department at the ARC we saw today was the Entomology department where they had over 1 million samples of insects from all over Africa.
On our way to the next stop we decided that it would be fun to eat lunch at Mcdonalds in order to compare and contrast with Mcdonalds in the USA.

Our second farm visit was at the experimental farms at the University of Pretoria.  Their sheep unit had 200 head of Merino breeding ewes that were sheered once a year to cover their maintenance requirements as an adult ewe. We got to see how they were able to do research on feed efficiency for the government and feed companies. Learning about where and how they sheer their sheep was interesting mainly because there is an incentive to produce wool in South Africa compared to the United States where it is not worth sheering sheep for profit.  Going over to the dairy unit was cool because we were able to compare their dairy to others in the United States.  One thing that they were trying to work on was figuring out a way to put their milk to use by adding value through the processing of dairy products.  Both of these visits today were eye opening and made us think more about how South Africa has adapted to what they have in their environment.  After a long day, we are very excited for an opportunity to go to some of the museums in the area tomorrow.