Harper Adams University Repository
Not a member yet
1466 research outputs found
Sort by
Reflections on effective employee development from new entrants to the UK agriculture and agri-food sector
Get PDFBackground: In the context of workforce challenges in UK agriculture and agri-food, workplace employee development could be a critical tool for developing human capital that
supports individual and organisational success.
Purpose of study: This research aimed to enhance understanding of how those entering UK agricultural and agri-food employment from non-agricultural backgrounds perceived the employee development that they experienced in their first role in the sector.
Design: A mixed methods approach incorporating a survey and semi-structured interviews was used followed by statistical and thematic evaluation.
Findings: Informal employee development was highly valued for professional development but formal development was perceived to have more impact on performance in role. Participants praised mentoring and opportunities for informal communication, while development processes such as induction and performance review were perceived less positively.
Recommendations/Practical implications: Overall, supporting managers to develop their own skillset and knowledge on employee development, will help to create workplace environments where new entrants from non-agricultural backgrounds can be individually supported to learn, engage and develop.
Research practical implication: Mentoring schemes, informal employee development, and guidance for sector managers could support employee development in the UK agriculture and
agri-food sector
Towards improving medicine stewardship in the Northern Ireland sheep flock
Get PDFBACKGROUND National sales data cannot identify which medicines are used in sheep, as most products are also used to treat other species. Further, there is no data on why medicines are being used in the Northern Ireland (NI) flock. Levels of antimicrobial consumption may indicate underlying health and welfare concerns within a flock.
DATA COLLECTION An online questionnaire addressed sheep scab, and general flock health. Medicine records were obtained from 52 NI sheep farmers, and analysed to determine the types and quantities of medicines being used. Concurrently semi-structured interviews were undertaken with farmers (27), vets (15), SQPs (7) and other industry stakeholders (13) to investigate drivers for medicine use, and the barriers to improve stewardship, from each participant’s unique viewpoint. The themes from the interviews were considered through a series of discussion groups with stakeholders.
RESULTS Significant findings regarding the distribution of sheep scab throughout NI, and a number of barriers farmers face in controlling it were highlighted. Medicine records demonstrated a wide variation in the medicines used, the drivers for their use and farmers’ ability to record medicine usage. Overall, NI sheep farmers appear to have low antibiotic consumption but there exist notable areas for improvement. Prescribers described a range of experiences and impact achieved in trying to influence farmer behaviour. Industry stakeholders generally recognise the need for change but are cognisant that there are few clearly-defined incentives to reward change in antimicrobial stewardship. CONCLUSION Given the diverse range of opinions coming from the interviews and discussions, it is unlikely there will be a simple solution to improve medicine stewardship. The full range of sheep industry stakeholders will need to work together to motivate, facilitate, reward, and sustain changes in behaviour, in both farmers and prescribers, if meaningful and lasting change in practice is to occur
Demography and adaptation of a species specific pollinator associated with an invasive fig tree
Get PDFSome fig species introduced outside of their native range have become invasive when colonized by their obligate pollinating wasps, but how these pollinators migrated and adapted to novel environments are less studied. Here, we focus on Eupristina verticillata, the obligate pollinating wasp of an invasive fig tree species (Ficus microcarpa), to uncover its demography and the molecular basis for adaptations to novel environments. We find that only one of the three cryptic species colonized in the sampling locations outside of its native range. This dominant cryptic species migrated simultaneously from the native range to the Americas and to the Mediterranean c. 130 years ago. Moreover, selective sweep analyses reveal several positively selected genes associated with adaptations to the nonnative range. Genome-wide association detect a nonsynonymous substitution in a dopamine N-acetyltransferase gene significantly linked with brood size. Our study outlines the route to colonization and genetic adaptations of an invasive mutualism
Animal and pasture responses in contrasting temperate pasture-based cattle management systems: set-stocking versus cell grazing
Get PDFGrasslands cover a significant portion of the Earth’s land and offer many benefits. In the UK, they constitute the largest agricultural area and support livestock production. Traditional set-stocking (SS) and continuous grazing methods allow animals to selectively graze more palatable and nutritious plant parts and species, boosting individual animal productivity in the short term but can be detrimental to long-term pasture productivity. Cell grazing (CG), an intensive rotational system, is proposed as an alternative that can enhance system productivity and profitability through increased pasture production, utilisation, and stocking rates; with potential to optimise natural resource use (e.g., land) and mitigate environmental impacts (e.g., soil carbon sequestration). A 4-year study at Rothamsted Research’s North Wyke site in southwest England compared animal and pasture responses under SS and CG stocking methods using a split-block design with three replicates (enclosures) per treatment. The SS enclosures (1.5–1.75 ha) were continuously grazed with fixed stocking rates, and CG enclosures (1.0 ha) were rotationally grazed with flexible daily grazing area allocations and stocking rates. Grazing occurred from spring to autumn, using two cohorts of autumn-born dairy × beef steers, each grazed for 2 years before slaughter. Measurements included standing herbage mass (weekly), herbage chemical composition (fortnightly), steer liveweight (monthly), and botanical composition (spring 2018 and 2022). DM intake was estimated based on animal energy requirements. Significant interaction effects (P < 0.05) were found for most variables, apart from metabolisable energy, ADF and NDF which were affected by treatment (P < 0.05) and year (P < 0.001), and DM content which was affected by year only (P < 0.001). Average daily gain was higher in SS (0.77 kg/d) than CG (0.60 kg/d), linked to higher estimated DM intake (7.2 vs 6.2 kg DM). However, annual liveweight (LW) production per hectare was greater in CG (687 vs 476 kg LW/ha, respectively), due to higher total pasture production (6 053 vs 3 667 kg DM/ha, respectively) and stocking rate (2 362 vs 1 290 kg LW/ha, respectively). Herbage nutritional quality varied, with CG having higher metabolisable energy and water-soluble carbohydrates, and lower fibre (ADF and NDF) concentrations. Changes in botanical composition also varied between treatments. The proportion of perennial ryegrass increased under CG (42–69%, P < 0.001) but declined under SS (36–16%, P < 0.01). These results highlight that while SS can enhance individual animal gains, CG improves total system productivity and pasture composition. Long-term, replicated experiments like this are crucial for evaluating the long-term viability and sustainability of differing stocking methods and grazing management strategies
Circular economy policies for water and wastewater
Get PDFThe circular economy (CE) transition is a modern challenge for policymakers, utility managers, and consumers, particularly in the water and wastewater sector. It offers essential environmental benefits by reducing resource use, minimizing waste generation, and enhancing water recycling and reuse. This transition is important for addressing challenges in traditional water management, environmental and climate impacts. This editorial introduces the special issue on Circular Economy Policies for Water and Wastewater, outlining its key contributions and discussing the policy implications for sustainable water management systems. The published works of this issue offer valuable insights for evolving the concepts of circularity and sustainability in water and wastewater policymaking agendas. To complement the discussion, we performed a bibliographic investigation focusing on circular economy policies and water and wastewater, to capture works dealing with the whole water cycle. Analysis of the 307 articles located showed a wide range of topics involved with a worldwide coverage and international collaboration among authors
What a load of rubbish: The impact of anthropogenic litter on urban freshwater diversity
Get PDFThe abundance of anthropogenic litter (AL) in aquatic environments is an increasing global problem. Most research on the effects of AL has focussed on marine environments, with research examining the ecological effects of AL in freshwater ecosystems largely missing. Our study examines the impacts of AL on macroinvertebrate diversity in two urban freshwater systems in West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom. Two urban river and two canal reaches were surveyed for macroinvertebrates from the bed sediments of riffles (in a river), open water and macrophyte habitats (in a canal), and AL items (from both freshwaters). We found higher local taxonomic richness and differences in community composition in 1) the bed sediments of riffles compared to AL items within urban rivers, and 2) open water and emergent vegetation than AL items within our canal reaches. Taxonomic richness was higher on metals and plastics in urban rivers than canal reaches, and macroinvertebrate community composition was distinct between AL types (e.g., fabrics and metals, plastics and polystyrenes), possibly due to differences in structure, shape and texture. AL items in both urban freshwaters supported unique taxa, indicating that AL items may provide a habitat for macroinvertebrates where physical habitat complexity is poor. The restoration of natural physical habitat and removal of AL should be a key priority for freshwater conservation. However, rinsing AL items prior to removal during litter clean-ups is essential to minimise any potential macroinvertebrate loss. In urban freshwaters, physical habitat could be increased by gravel augmentation, installing large wood or boulders
The diversity of Ficus
Get PDFBackground
The influence of Ficus extends beyond its numbers (887 species), and fig trees are often keystone species in their habitats. Ficus fills many tropical forest niches. The past 15 years have witnessed an explosion of research on Ficus and its obligate mutualists in the chalcid family Agaonidae, but also on its wider community of interactants. Long-standing ideas have been challenged, and pathways to speciation have been explored. We aim to stimulate collegiate discussion: why are there not more species of fig?
Scope
Here, we critically review the literature relating to diversification in Ficus, while presenting a synthetic overview of our current understanding and knowledge gaps. We illustrate key concepts with well-studied groups of Ficus and other obligate mutualisms. Our review is unapologetically detailed and includes extensive botanical insight that is frequently overlooked in the literature. We draw on these details to develop hypotheses relating to the origin of diversity within the genus Ficus.
Conclusions
We argue that the fig itself represents a new niche and explore the implications of sexual and vegetative traits in driving diversification (species richness) and diversity (in the ecological sense). An increasingly stable backbone phylogeny and the availability of genomic nuclear and chloroplast data have shed dappled light upon the deep evolutionary past. Incidences of potential diversification through introgression exist, but we must be cautious because the tools used were not always suitable for revealing ancient hybridization. An asymmetric genetic sampling of figs and wasps has further influenced our concepts of host specificity in the genus. Our comparative approach evaluates classical models of speciation in Ficus, concluding that adaptive radiations on islands have triggered diversification. We should maintain global research networks and sample widely. It is tempting to overgeneralize results. This leads to misconceptions and missing puzzle pieces. Furthermore, adoption of standard protocols ensures connectivity
Functional classification of the tiger moths (Erebidae: Arctiinae) of Barro Colorado Island, Panama, complements ecological insights from phylogenetic classification
No full textFactors influencing mycotoxin production in grass silage, and their effects on rumen metabolism and the microbiome in dairy cows
Get PDFMycotoxins are secondary metabolites that can contaminate agricultural crops and forages (Eskola et al., 2020; Pusztahelyi et al., 2015) and are mainly synthesised by Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium fungi, with harmful effects on humans and animals (Hussein and Brasel, 2001; Zain, 2011). Maize silage has been a focus of mycotoxin research as a matter of animal and public health, due to the acute toxicity of aflatoxin B1, and the potential carryover of this metabolite into milk (Min et al., 2021). In Great Britain, however, a considerable proportion of grass silage is produced for feeding dairy cows (Franco et al., 2021), where its mycotoxin profile has been understudied, and little is known of the effect on the rumen microbiome and metabolism. Previous studies identified mycotoxins of often Penicillium associated origin are dominant in grass silages, with non European Union (EU) regulated mycotoxins such as mycophenolic acid (MPA), present (O’Brien, 2010; Schneweis et al., 2000; Tangni et al., 2013). Most non-regulated grass silage mycotoxins identified to date, can elicit antibacterial and antifungal effects and even immunosuppressive effects (i.e. MPA (Heischmann et al., 2017)), that may lead to rumen dysbiosis and poorer dairy cow performance (Fink-Gremmels, 2008). Moreover, no correlation has been found between the presence of visible mould in silages and level of mycotoxin contamination (Manni et al., 2022), which could mean cows are exposed, unbeknownst to the farmer.
This thesis details a range of studies with the following aims: 1) to identify grass silage mycotoxins in Great Britain, 2) to elucidate effects of silage fermentation and management on mycotoxin production, 3) to understand the effect of grass silage mycotoxins on rumen fermentation, and also, 4) on the rumen microbiome, and dairy cow performance.
The findings of this thesis support that grass silage mycotoxin synthesis is influenced by fermentation parameters such as dry matter content, lactic acid and acetic acid concentration as well as management such as minimising oxygen proliferation through the clamp at opening. British grass silages often contain non EU regulated mycotoxins such as penicillic and fusaric acid that demonstrate the ability to alter rumen volatile fatty acid production, when in combination with other mycotoxins, at levels observed naturally synthesised on farm. Relative abundance of species of Succiniclasticum, Methanobrevibacter and Prevotella were impacted by the inclusion of MPA in the diet of dairy cows, with the potential to impact rumen function and animal performance, if fed for a prolonged duration. It highlights the necessity for regular mycotoxin testing on farm and for the EU Food and Safety Authority to consider synergistic mycotoxin combinations when deciding on guidance values in order to minimise impacts on the health and performance of cows in the British dairy industry
Model comparison and hyperparameter optimization for visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectral classification of dehydrated banana slices
No full textThis study investigated the classification of banana samples from 33 distinct environments using hyperspectral reflectance data and various machine-learning algorithms. Feature selection was performed using Recursive Feature Elimination with Extra Trees, reducing the dataset from 750 to 50 wavelengths. The data was partitioned into training, testing, and validation sets using stratified sampling. Traditional machine learning algorithms, including KNN, CART, SVM, Naive Bayes, LDA, QDA, MLP, Ridge, Bagging, Random Forest, AdaBoost, LightGBM, and XGBoost, were evaluated and optimized using Optuna. Deep learning architectures, such as CNN, CNN-LSTM, ConvLSTM, GRU, LSTM, and BiLSTM, were also assessed and tuned using Bayesian optimization and early stopping. Performance metrics included accuracy, training and testing times, and confusion matrices. Among the traditional models, SVM (C = 1000, polynomial kernel) and MLP (hidden_layer_sizes=(100, 50), identity activation, lbfgs solver) achieved the highest test accuracies of 96.07 % and 92.13 %, respectively. XGBoost and Bagging also performed well, with test accuracies of around 82 %. For the deep learning models, GRU (Adamax optimizer learning rate = 0.01, 100 epochs) outperformed the others with 85.32 % test accuracy, followed by CNN at 81.39 %. LSTM and BiLSTM achieved test accuracies of 76.70 % and 67.78 %, respectively, whereas CNN-LSTM and ConvLSTM struggled at 56.28 % and 43.87 %. This study highlights the trade-off between model complexity and computational efficiency, with GRU and CNN offering a good balance for real-time applications. These findings provide valuable insights for selecting suitable models for hyperspectral data classification in agricultural and environmental monitoring