Professor Chris Reynolds
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+44 (0) 118 378 4684
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Professor of Animal & Dairy Science
- Deputy Head, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development
- Director of the Centre for Dairy Research (CEDAR)
- Module Convenor for: Dairy Production; Animal Production
- Undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation supervisor
- Academic Tutor to undergraduate students
Areas of interest
Research has become increasingly wholistic and systems-based, addressing some of the major challenges for animal agriculture, including the large amount of methane produced by rumen microbes, the relatively low efficiency of dietary nitrogen utilization in ruminants, and the large contribution of nitrogen in ruminant livestock excreta to global nitrous oxide, ammonia, and nitrate emission inventories. This research has included numerous long-term, multi-site, collaborative projects on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture and improving the efficiency of N utilization in ruminant production systems, with a focus on dietary and other management strategies for reducing methane emissions and improving the efficiency of N utilization in dairy production systems. Chris has supervised numerous PhD students to completion across varied animal science areas.
Teaching
Teaching focus is on dairy, beef and sheep production systems from a UK and global context. Specific areas for classroom undergraduate teaching include feeding, digestion and nutrition, genetics and breeding, dairy cow transition, and environmental impacts of animal agriculture. Field trips to local farms focus on using observations and records to evaluate management practice and improve health, welfare and sustainability.
Research projects
- Diverse Forages Project: A multi-disciplinary (animal, plant, and soil science, agronomy, environmental and economic modelling) research on the use of legumes and multi-species swards for ruminant production systems to reduce reliance on N fertilizer and improve resilience to climate change, soil health and fertility, animal nutrition and health, and biodiversity (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZMVbd8-wuUg4HJdQx2IPaQ).
- Dairy Protein Efficiency:How Low Can We Go?:A multi-site, long-term project on ‘increasing the efficiency of protein utilization in dairy production systems’ that included a trial examining the effects of incremental reductions in dietary protein supply over multiple lactations (/apd/facilities/cedar).
- Recent research collaborations have also included: