The Dairy Research and Innovation Centre is part of the South and West Faculty in the Department of Agriculture and Business Management.

The Dairy Research and Innovation Centre is based at Crichton Royal Farm, Dumfries. It aims to develop, implement and provide information from sustainable breeding and management systems for dairy cows. Critical objectives include finding ways to improve the health and welfare of UK dairy herds and measuring different systems’ effects on the environment. Our work increasingly considers the carbon footprint, biodiversity and soil health aspects of dairy production.

Dairy systems research is performed with the Langhill pedigree herd, selected since 1970 as a high genetic merit line and a control line for the production of milk solids (fat and protein).

These cattle are managed on two distinctly different management systems – the design of these systems changes every 5 years, with comparisons designed to both challenge the genetic potential of the different genetic lines and test innovative concepts in dairy systems.

The detailed recording of these animals presents many opportunities for a diverse range of add-on monitoring projects – from lameness detection through to proxies for feed efficiency and methane emissions.