A weighing system being worked on by CQUniveristy researchers is making waves in the industry, but the university’s agricultural lecturer Dr Jessica Roberts said the innovation still has improvements to be made.
The university started offering a new Bachelor of Agriculture this year, and Dr Roberts said an emphasis on both research and education was providing great opportunities for students.
“We have a very strong tie between research and education at the moment,” she said.
“We have projects like the Walk over Weight system, and it is not only industry relevant, but it is readily available to the industry.
”What we are trying to do is improve how that technology can be used by the farmers.”
The system, which is commercially available to farmers, offers them the ability to remotely weigh cattle as the stock walks over the system, which sends live updates to farmers.
Dr Roberts said the project teams are looking at ways to improve the technology.
“There are some improvements that we are looking at in terms of how we distinguish which animals weights are accurate - because sometimes the cattle come over together so you get two weights shown as one,” she said.
Newly-elected Member for Capricornia Michelle Landry also praised the innovations.
“The technology sees cattle walking over a device in the field called Walk-over-Weighing or WoW, so a farmer can keep track of the health of individual cattle identified by their ear tag code. It saves the expense and time of mustering cattle into a set of yards to take static weights – which can also disturb and stress the animals,” Ms Landry said.
“By capturing the weights in the paddock, a farmer can on a daily basis have an idea of how their herd is going and make management decisions from their farm office.”