One of the companies helping sponsor the IFAJ Congress here in Norway is GENO Breeding and A.I. Association.
On our dairy tour today, Torstein Steine, Director of Breeding and Research, gave us an overview of the Norwegian Cow Record System. GENO is very involved in this project which has an immense amount of data online now.
Before we got to go into the dairy barn on today’s IFAJ Congress tour we learned about automatic or robotic milking from the expert.
He’s Gunnar Pettersson, Swedish University of Agricultural Science. He used a power point presentation but I recorded him anyway and am providing an edited version of that talk.
Today I got to visit a dairy operation which is pretty big business in Norway. We toured the Smestad farm. Pictured here are our hosts, Ole Kristian and Randi Skallerud.
The interesting part of the dairy is that he’s using an automatic milking system. So before we event went into the barn we learned more about robotic milking.
I have to interrupt my coverage of the IFAJ Congress since this is a big story that just came to my inbox via news release. It looks like Monsanto is getting bigger into the seed business!
I left the dinner last night a lot earlier than most. Just as I was leaving to be a good boy and go home to my hotel room a seed spitting contest was getting started.
Here at the IFAJ Congress in Norway we have not gone hungry.
Our dinner last night was a reindeer roast. Actually we had a lot of meat that included lamb and I’m not even sure what all else.
Before our dinner last night we got to see what I think vikings like to do. And that is fight.
Our second evening in Hamar, Norway at the IFAJ Congress was a mix of very good cultural entertainment and local food and beverage.
Last post of today. We had a wonderful dinner tonight but more on that later.
I thought I’d leave you with this image. You identify the man with the arrow. It will all make sense when I get caught up tomorrow.
Did I mention it rained today? Off and on, hard and soft. But we didn’t really care.
