The project will use Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research’s collection of microbial organisms to transform waste such as grape marc and potato skins and off-cuts into a palatable high energy, low protein feed.
University of Canterbury Environmental Science Professor Brett Robinson, who heads up the program, told FeedNavigator: “Manaaki Whenua has a collection of 20,000 species microbes from plants. The challenge is to select the microbial consortia that can transform these wastes into beneficial products. Not just any old microbes can do this – scientists are using machine learning, a type of Artificial Intelligence, to select microbes and test them using small devices before scaling up.”
In this way, the scientists are hoping to produce low protein feeds that can help to overcome the environmental issue of nitrogen leaching into waterways.
“In New Zealand, animals tend to have an excess of protein in feed, largely because our agricultural systems are driven by perennial rye grass. This is a problem because the excess protein is excreted as nitrogen. Also, our animals are mostly outdoors, which means their urine and feces isn’t collected, so we have a big issue with nitrate leaching. If we can produce a high energy, low protein feed from potato waste, for example, this will reduce the amount of nitrogen released by the animal into the environment,” explained Prof Robinson.
Condensed tannins contribute
It is not just the low protein concentrations of these food waste derived feeds that will help reduce nitrogen leaching, but also the high concentrations of bioactive chemicals such as condensed tannins, said Prof Robinson.
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August 13, 2021 at 01:08PM
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