Rachel Fields presented her PhD exit seminar on Friday 14th July at Lincoln University’s Field Research Centre (FRC). This video is a shortened version of that seminar presenting her main research findings.
The topic of Rachel’s PhD was ‘Causes of elevated coumestrol in lucerne and mitigation of the subsequent risk to ewe reproductive performance’
Coumestrol is a phyto-oestrogen in lucerne that can decrease ewe ovulation rates if consumed by ewes during the mating period. Rachel isolated a range of agronomic factors in order to predict when coumestrol levels may be elevated in a crop, and also looked into livestock management in order to limit the risk that coumestrol has on ewe reproduction (17⅓ mins).
