Job Description

#

Research Office

Location:

Newport, Shropshire TF10 8NB

Salary:

As per advert

Post Type:

Full Time

Contract Type:

Fixed Term - 36 months funded

Closing Date:

23.59 hours BST on Monday 18 August 2025

Reference:

RD-PHD-01-LS-MH-25

Project Title:

The cost of silage production: measuring the carbon footprint of silage

Primary supervisor:

Prof. Liam Sinclair

Co supervisors:

Dr Kate Le Cocq, Dr Jules Taylor Pickard, Dr David D R Davies

Expected Start date and location

October 2025, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2025/6 this equates to 20, 780 per year, with potential increases each academic year in line with UKRI.

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees (11, 382 for the 2025/6 academic year) with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued. Please note that due to time frame for Visa applications the start date may have to be amended to January 2026.

Applicants

Applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline (Animal Science/Agriculture with Animals Science/Veterinary Bioscience or other Biological Science) or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Project

Forage preserved as silage is a major component of ruminant livestock feed in the UK and globally. Silage contributes to the carbon footprint of a farm through a) emissions produced during the harvest and filling of silage clamps, b) the production of CO2 during fermentation and feed-out of silage, c) enteric methane production when the silage is fed to ruminants.


Recent literature has reported that gases produced during silage fermentation exceeds fixation, with fermentation management in the form of silage additives having a significant effect on gas produced in experimental mini silos (Deeken et al., 2025). Additionally, it is known that fermentation in the rumen contributes between 40 to 50% of the carbon footprint of a litre of milk, and that forage quality affects production of enteric methane (Hristov, 2024).


Whole farm carbon audits have emerged as a critical tool in the quantification of gross carbon emissions and are being implemented to provide a carbon efficiency assessment of farm enterprises. The contribution and management of ensiling at the farm scale to these models has not been fully explored to the full extent.


The objectives of this project are i) to quantify the carbon footprint of silage production under different management practices using data collected in farm audits undertaken across the UK. ii) to use mathematical modelling methods to determine how on farm management practices can impact the carbon footprint of farm carbon assessment. iii) to contribute to the body of scientific literature and develop recommendations for implementation of farming practices that will result in the amelioration of farm carbon footprints for silage production.


The student will be based at Harper Adams university and be part of a research group encapsulating research on silage science and ruminant nutrition. The University operates commercial dairy, beef and sheep enterprises. The team will also include an independent silage specialist and a carbon footprint specialist from Alltech ECO2.

References

Deeken, H.F., Buscher, W., Trimborn, M., Schmithausen, A.J., Weiss, K., Lipski, A. and Maack, G.C., 2024. Greenhouse gas and volatile organic compound emissions of additive-treated whole-plant maize silage: part A--anaerobic fermentation period. Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture, 11(1), p.134.


Hristov, A.N., 2024. Invited review: Advances in nutrition and feed additives to mitigate enteric methane emissions. Journal of dairy science, 107(7), pp.4129-4146.





Harper Adams University is one of the premier UK Higher Education institutions focused on the land-based and food supply chain sector. With around 2,800 undergraduate students, plus those completing postgraduate, research and CPD programmes, Harper Adams University is the UK's largest single provider of higher education for these subjects. Programmes fall into eleven broad subject areas - but none operate in isolation. Community and collaboration are key at Harper Adams, meaning everyone, including staff, students and industry partners, benefits from a close network of knowledge and opportunity exchange. Situated in Shropshire, the campus and the surrounding area provide an excellent working and living environment for staff and students alike.


Harper Adams is consistently positioned highly in a range of national ratings, performance measures and league tables. The University has been the highest performing modern university in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide for the last four years, climbing to 17th place in the overall league table. In the 2020 guide Harper Adams was named Modern University of the Year and runner-up University of the Year. In the 2019 Whatuni? Student Choice Awards, based on student reviews, Harper Adams won the Student Support category for the fifth time - the only university to have taken the title since the awards began - and won the category for best job prospects for a fourth year running. In the 2020 QS World Rankings for Agriculture and Forestry published in March 2020, Harper Adams was ranked first in the UK for academic reputation and second in the world for its reputation with employers.



Harper Adams University is internationally recognised for the quality of its research, as evidenced by the Research Excellence Framework 2022. In order to maintain and uphold the high standards of our research, we continue to undertake initiatives to ensure that integrity, ethics and excellence are at the core of our research activities and fully embedded in our research culture.