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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2017
Pressure to reduce farm costs in milk production has seen an increasing demand on Milk Recording Organisations (MROs) to provide alternatives to the standard supervised recording scheme based on testing two milkings within a 24 hour period at 4-weekly intervals. With alternative schemes, a balance has to be sought between cost reduction and maintaining accuracy so that herd management decisions and genetic evaluations are not compromised. An am-pm recording scheme has been introduced by MROs as a way of reducing cost. It is based on testing one milking at 4-weekly intervals with the monthly test alternating between the morning and the evening milking. There is a need to establish how accurate this scheme is in estimating daily yield and to determine the weights required so that this information can be suitably included in the national genetic evaluation system.