A young farmer is one of a handful of people in the UK to have been awarded a bursary to study ruminant nutrition.
Gary Bruce, 22, who sells livestock feed with Turriff-based ACT Scotland, has received the award from the AgriFood Advanced Training Partnership.
He will use it to fund three years of block release courses at the Harper Adams University in Shropshire as well as ongoing home-based studies.
Gary, the chairman of Udny Junior Agricultural Club, said the bursary would help him further his career and give him a greater insight into the nutrition needed by the cattle and sheep on farms across Scotland as well as on his own family’s unit at Tillyeve, Udny.
The AgriFood Advanced Training Partnership is a higher level training partnership, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, to deliver skills and training to businesses in the agrifood sector.
Gary, who graduated with a BSc honours in agriculture from SAC, said the bursary was an excellent opportunity to get expert training as the nutrition group includes staff from a variety of national firms. He is one of only five in the UK and the only Scot to receive a ruminant nutrition award.
Gary said his interest in ruminant nutrition had developed during the dissertation he completed as part of his degree. It was on rumen necrosis in beef finishing cattle. The work for that included visits to a slaughterhouse to see rumens damaged by the feed they were receiving.
He added: “At home we keep beef cattle and sheep. The nutrition side of them has always interested me.
“With the price of the feed getting more and more expensive the days of giving the cattle silage and a wee puckle barley are gone as this is not efficient.
“I need to know as much new knowledge as possible so that our animals can perform to their maximum potential and make maximum profit.”
The Bruce family is best known for their pedigree Suffolk sheep and Simmental cattle, the progeny of which are sold through Thainstone or Stirling. Calves and lambs which do not make it to the pedigree market are finished. The family also overwinters 400 lambs for fattening.
Gary hopes to undertake more research work on ruminants across a range of enterprises.