WATER troughs could soon be roped into Australia’s biosecurity surveillance system, with new research showing they can act as effective early warning points for livestock disease. A newly published paper by the Research Institute for Northern Agriculture (RINA) at Charles Darwin University has demonstrated that simple environmental nucleic acid (eNA) testing of trough water can detect bacterial and viral signatures linked to livestock health, offering a potential new layer of surveillance for the cattle industry. The research paper notes that early detection is critical in managing potential disease threats such as foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. Traditional surveillance relies on sampling individual animals, which is often impractical in northern Australia’s vast grazing systems. The research explored whether water troughs, where cattle regularly congregate and shed biological material, could provide a simpler, herd-level monitoring point. Researchers trialled ...