Systems of Winter Milk Production based on all Autumn Calving Cows

End of Project ReportA supply of winter milk is needed by certain milk processors for the production of high value dairy products with a short shelf life to balance the high level of commodity based products which are mainly manufactured from seasonal milk produced from spring calving herds. Winter milk is generally produced by suppliers with split calving herds. A proportion of the cows (30-50%) calve in Autumn (September-December) to supply winter milk for which they receive a winter bonus for a contracted supply for the months of October to February. The remainder of the herd calve in Spring (Feb-April) and produce milk mainly off grass for which no bonus is paid. This system evens out the supply of milk throughout the year but complicates management, as it involves running two herds on the farm, with two calving seasons, two breeding seasons and two sets of replacement heifers to be reared. Also there is no break from milking. A system of winter milk production based on calving all of the cows in Autumn would be simpler, as it would involve only one herd, with a break from milking in late Summer and would appeal to many winter milk producers. In this study the feasibility of operating an all Autumn calving herd was examined, in terms of management, calving, winter feeding, reproduction and summer grazing. The herd was located in the Ballyderown farm attached to the Moorepark Research Centre. Alternative winter feeding systems were put in place over a three year period to compare the feed requirements and milk production of each system. A control system based on grass silage as the sole forage was compared with one where grass silage was supplemented with extended grazing of grass in late Autumn and early Spring or with a system based on a mixed forage diet based on grass silage, maize silage, brewers grains or a brewers grains/beet pulp mix. Grass silage and maize silage was produced within each system and the cows on each system were grazed separately within their own farmlets. The overall stocking rate for each system was 2.7 cows/ha using 350 kg N fertiliser/ha in addition to cattle slurry. Cows were dried off in mid-late July and were grazed tightly until calving down. The calving season extended from early September to early December. Most cows calved down outdoors at pasture or in a calving paddock without assistance. Cows were housed from early November to late March and were allocated to their respective diets in batches according to milk yield, lactation number and calving date. The cows given access to winter grass were given a daily allocation of grass (6-8 kg DM/cow) and grazed between morning and evening milking

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF EUROPEAN UNION A Symposium on Some Policy Aspects. THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, DUBLIN, 1986

The papers published here, together with the Matthews paper, address some of the economic questions on which discussion of further European integration should be based. Will European prosperity bring Irish prosperity? Does a free market threaten traditional Irish industry, or aid new Irish industry, or both? How can a small peripheral economy survive and prosper in a monetary union? How much autonomy does an Irish government at present enjoy in monetary and fiscal policy? Are Ireland’s interests close to the Community average? Questions such as these are asked by politicians, who expect economists to answer them; economists tend to react by asking further questions, by demanding quantitative data on which to base their assessments. It is one of the positive points of these papers that the economists have been willing to be drawn out on some of these current issues of political economy, even if others remain to be tackled. I believe that the burden of these papers does not suggest any reason for doubting that in the long term it is in Ireland’s interest that the Community should be economically and politically strong, and that Ireland should be a full partner in that Community

Growth and structure of prismatic boron nitride nanorods

Prismatic boron nitride nanorods have been grown on single crystal silicon substrates by mechanical ball-milling followed by annealing at 1300 &deg;C. Growth takes place by rapid surface diffusion of BN molecules, and follows heterogeneous nucleation at catalytic particles of an Fe/Si alloy. Lattice imaging transmission electron microscopy studies reveal a central axial row of rather small truncated pyramidal nanovoids on each nanorod, surrounded by three basal planar BN domains which, with successive deposition of epitaxial layers adapt to the void geometry by crystallographic faceting. The bulk strain in the nanorods is taken up by the presence of what appear to be simple nanostacking faults in the external, near-surface domains which, like the nanovoids are regularly repetitive along the nanorod length. Growth terminates with a clear cuneiform tip for each nanorod. Lateral nanorod dimensions are essentially determined by the size of the catalytic particle, which remains as a foundation essentially responsible for base growth. Growth, structure, and dominating facets are shown to be consistent with a system which seeks lowest bulk and surface energies according to the well-known thermodynamics of the capillarity of solids.<br /

Common Representation of Information Flows for Dynamic Coalitions

We propose a formal foundation for reasoning about access control policies within a Dynamic Coalition, defining an abstraction over existing access control models and providing mechanisms for translation of those models into information-flow domain. The abstracted information-flow domain model, called a Common Representation, can then be used for defining a way to control the evolution of Dynamic Coalitions with respect to information flow