Effects of Heat Stress on Production in Dairy Cattle

Dear Colleagues, 

With a rapidly growing population, increasing demands in animal protein and products, decreasing arable land, and challenges in climate change and animal production are the crossroads of transformation.  Scientists and farmers must develop and adopt new technologies, embrace climate change challenges, and be sensitive to new urban consumers who want high value animal protein while having a desire for of animal welfare and pristine environment. Hence, the Special Issue with a focus on dairy production should encompass chapters in climate change (recent drastic events and projection of increasing temperatures per region), mitigation of heat stress by management—feed (macro and micro nutrients requirements), housing and environment modifiers, genetic/molecular approach, immune responses, and diseases—and other new frontiers that mitigate stress without increasing carbon or methane production.

This Special Issue should encompass the following chapters.

1. Climate change (as heat stress is only a fraction of the overall challenges of this phenomenon) as it relates to human and livestock losses. This can be in relation with floods, droughts, increasing temperatures, or even extreme cold.
2. PST and existing research on heat stress. This can begin with topics on feed production (for example, more digestible forages, harvest time, and nutrient density, etc.); to minerals, ionophores, enzymes, etc.; to manageable practices in a farm and farm housing; and then to new frontiers of immune response, genes, etc.
3. While much of the topics in "b" have been or are being covered by several journals, what is of interest is to have some of these topics focus on the tropical and subtropical world where there is a growing population, a growing affluence in the population, and a changing demand for food and food habits. This is where challenges arise, which include the following: a region with decreasing arable land, shifting population to urbanization, and rapid population growth that warrants food supply. Many of these countries are net importers of dairy products.
4. Moreover, there are public policy issues, for example, the production of feed crops versus commercial industrial crops, e.g., oil palm, rubber, etc. Reliance of animal feed importation increases greenhouse gasses, drains capital via capital outflow, etc.

We welcome submissions of research articles on the listed topics. Reasoned and updated reviews are also welcome.

Dr. Chin Nyean Lee
Guest Editor

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• dairy cattle
• heat stress
• production