Abstract
Abstract This study set out to investigate possible relationships between lamb carcass weight and quality with feed availability during the main growing season in southern Greenland where farms are sparsely distributed over a large area. In early May, ewes and new-born lambs are let out to graze permanent nature areas until slaughter towards the end of September. In our study, we used data from 157,477 lambs slaughtered between 2010 and 2017 as well as the Normalized Differentiated Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of biomass growth. Mean carcass weight of lambs ranged from 13.4 kg in 2015 to 16.5 kg in 2010 where 70.5% of all lambs scored well for conformation and fat. Both farm, year, and NDVI significantly correlated with carcass weight and quality. Lambs raised in the northern and the southern grazing areas generally were smaller than lambs raised in the central part. Finally, NDVI explained between 0 and 74% of the variation in mean carcass weight across years within each grazing area. Our work exemplifies the use of satellite-derived data to attempt an explanation of spatial variation in productivity, which in the future could be coupled with other spatial variables such as soil quality, vegetation, and topography.
Highlights
This study set out to investigate possible relationships between lamb carcass weight and quality with feed availability during the main growing season in southern Greenland where farms are sparsely distributed over a large area
The main objective of this study was to investigate carcass weight and carcass quality of lambs from southern Greenland and the potential relationship with feed availability represented as area-specific biomass growth between 2010 and 2017
The political ambition in Greenland to increase self-sufficiency with food (Landbrugskommisionen 2014) may be supported by improved growing conditions caused by climate change (Christensen et al 2016)2016, and several have assessed the potential for an expanded sheep production in Greenland (Caviezel et al 2017; Thorsteinsson 1983; Westergaard-Nielsen et al 2015)
Summary
Abstract: This study set out to investigate possible relationships between lamb carcass weight and quality with feed availability during the main growing season in southern Greenland where farms are sparsely distributed over a large area. We used data from 157,477 lambs slaughtered between 2010 and 2017 as well as the Normalized Differentiated Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of biomass growth. Mean carcass weight of lambs ranged from 13.4 kg in 2015 to 16.5 kg in 2010 where 70.5% of all lambs scored well for conformation and fat. Both farm, year, and NDVI significantly correlated with carcass weight and quality. NDVI explained between 0 and 74% of the variation in mean carcass weight across years within each grazing area. Our work exemplifies the use of satellite-derived data to attempt an explanation of spatial variation in productivity, which in the future could be coupled with other spatial variables such as soil quality, vegetation, and topography
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