Merko Vaga

I am a Researcher at the Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare. My work has mainly focused on improving feed and protein utilisation in ruminant production. My experimental work has involved using isotope techniques in in vitro metabolic studies and small-scale forage and silage trials with red clover and tropical forages. I have also researched house cricket production based on forages, and have lead project analysing large datasets for finding genotypic and phenotypic factors affecting twinning rate in dairy cattle and effect of twinning on cattle performance. 

Cholleti, H., Vaga, M., Jansson, A., Blomström, A. L. and Berg, M. (2022). House crickets (Othroptera: Gryllidae: Acheta domesticus) reared in small-scale laboratory conditions harbour limited viral flora. Journal of Insects as Food and Feed. 8(10), 1149-1155. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3920/JIFF2021.0129

Fernandez-Cassi, X., Söderqvist, K., Bakeeva, A., Vaga, M., Dicksved, J., Vägsholm, I., Jansson, A. and Boqvist, S. (2020). Microbial communities and food safety aspects of crickets (Acheta domesticus) reared under controlled conditions. Journal of Insects as Food and Feed. 6(4), 429-440. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3920/JIFF2019.0048 

Vaga, M., Berggren, Å., Pauly, T. and Jansson, A. (2020). Effect of harvesting time and conservation strategy of red clover on growth performance of house crickets (Acheta domesticus). Journal of Insects as Food and Feed. 6(2), 179-189. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3920/JIFF2019.0038 

Fernandez-Cassi, X., Supeanu, A., Vaga, M., Jansson, A., Boqvist S. and Vagsholm, I. (2019). The house cricket (Acheta domesticus) as a novel food: a risk profile. Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, 5, 137-157. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3920/JIFF2018.0021 

Vaga, M. and Huhtanen, P. (2018). In vitro investigation of the ruminal digestion kinetics of different nitrogen fractions of 15N-labelled timothy forage. PLoS ONE, 13(9), e0203385. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203385

Krizsan, S. J., Mateos-Rivera, A., Bertilsson, S., Felton, A. M., Anttila, A., Ramin, M., Vaga, M., Gidlund, H. and Huhtanen P. (2018). An in vitro evaluation of browser and grazer fermentation efficiency and microbiota using European moose spring and summer foods. Ecology and Evolution, 8, 4183–4196. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3920 

Gidlund, H., Vaga, M., Ahvenjärvi, S., Rinne, M., Ramin, M. and Huhtanen, P. (2018). Predicting omasal flow of nonammonia N and milk protein yield from in vitro-determined utilizable crude protein at the duodenum. Journal of Dairy Science, 101, 1164-1176. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2017-13422 

Ahvenjärvi, S., Vaga, M., Vanhatalo, A. and Huhtanen, P. (2018). Ruminal metabolism of grass silage soluble N fractions. Journal of Dairy Science, 101, 279-294. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3168/jds.2016-12316 

Vaga, M., Hetta, M. and Huhtanen, P. (2017). Effects of heat treatment on protein feeds evaluated in vitro by the method of estimating utilisable crude protein at the duodenum. J Anim Physiol Anim Nutr. 101, 1259-1272. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jpn.12646 

Bakken, A. K., Vaga, M., Hetta, M., Randby, Å. T. and Steinshamn, H. (2016). Protein characteristics in grass–clover silages according to wilting rate and fermentation pattern. Grass Forage Sci. 72, 626–639. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gfs.12271 

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2682-0085