Scientific Advisory Group, SAG

Annually, NorFor R&D meet researchers from four universities: Agricultural University of Iceland (LBHI), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Norwegian university of Life Science (NMBU) and Aarhus University (AU). We call the gathering the Scientific Advisory Group, SAG.

The intention with SAG is to highlite topics that are important in ruminant nutrition and important for the NorFor model.

At the SAG meetings, NorFor receives input from the researchers, discuss current topics and start collaborative projects. The topics mainly concern measuring technology, modelling, data sources and nutrient requirements for cattle.

The researchers are currently discussing what analytical methods NorFor should recommend to commercial laboratories and use for the data in feedstuff table. There was consensus among the researchers (the NorFor book chapter 2) to use, for example:

• Dry matter temperature of 60°C for forage samples.
• In situ method. All from material and pore size of the nylon bags, handling of the samples, durance in the rumen to calculation for the rumen degradation characteristics of NDF and crude protein.
• Method of neutral detergent fibre, also called aNDFom, using Merten’s method (ISO 16472:2006 IDT) where sample is treated with sodium sulphate and amylase and present the result as ash free.
• Methods and calculations for estimating organic matter digestibility in vivo.

Other important projects that has been implemented in NorFor as a result of the discussions in SAG is:

• The starch degradation model was developed by the team from AU (Razzaghi et al., 2016).
• The estimation of indigestible NDF for forage samples was made in collaboration with SLU and AU.
• Analysis method of NEL20 in compound feed was developed by NMBU and AU (Alvarez et al., 2021; 2022).

From the left: Johanna Karlsson (NorFor/Växa), Egil Prestløkken (NMBU), Torsten Eriksson (SLU), Jóhannes Sveinbjörnsson (LBHI), Henrik Martinussen (NorFor/Seges), Carsten Pedersen (Pedersen Nutrition), Martin Riis Weisbjerg (AU), Niels Bastian Kristensen (Seges), Nicolaj Ingeman Nielsen (NorFor/Seges), Mogen Larsen (AU), and Harald Volden (NorFor/Tine/NMBU).