Adequate vegetative cover decreases nitrous oxide emissions from cattle urine deposited in grazed pastures under rainy season conditions

Chirinda, Ngonidzashe; Loaiza, Sandra; Arenas, Laura; Ruiz, Verónica; Faverín, Claudia; Álvarez, Carolina; Savian, Jean Víctor; Belfon, Renaldo; Zuniga, Karen; Morales-Rincon, Luis A.; Trujillo, Catalina; Arango, Miguel; Rao, Idupulapati M.; Arango, Jacobo; Peters, Michael; Barahona, Rolando; Costa, Ciniro; Rosenstock, Todd S.; Richards, Meryl; Martínez-Barón, Deissy; Cardenas, L. M.

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37453-2

Cited by 29 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…This suggests that VSP and SP may be concerned with land degradation 216 issues that can lead to less productivity. In addition, less than 50% of farms in each livestock producer 217 category used improved pastures (Table 2), in spite of the fat that implantation of improved pastures 218 increases forage biomass availability and farm productivity (Chirinda et al, 2019). Hence, ensuring 219 adoption of improved pastures is of high-priority to increase productivity in cattle-fattening farms.…”

Section: General Farm Information 204mentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical and environmental characterization of Colombian beef cattle-fattening farms, with a focus on farm size and ways of improving production

et al. 2019

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In Colombia, cattle-fattening farms account for 20.7% of the Colombian cattle herd and play an important role in terms of economic and social benefits for rural communities. However, few characterization studies have been conducted on these production systems, which limit our understanding of their production dynamics and environmental impacts. This study aimed to characterize very small, small, medium, and large cattle-fattening farms from technical and environmental perspectives. The data analyzed were obtained from the Ganadería Colombiana Sostenible and the LivestockPlus projects, which gathered information from a total of 2618 farms, classified according to their cattle production orientation. From those, 275 cattle-fattening farms were classified as being either very small (1–30 bovines), small (31–50 bovines), medium (51–250 bovines), or large farms (more than 251 bovines). Numerical and categorical variables were distributed into five components: (1) general farm information, (2) composition and management of the herd, (3) pasture management, (4) production information, and (5) environmental information. Each component was analyzed using the factorial analysis of mixed data (FAMD) method. According to FAMD, for the components general farm information, herd composition and management, pasture management, and production information, distribution of variables led to a spatial separation of the centroid from each category of producers. For the component environmental information, there was no separation of the centroid. Better infrastructure, machinery and equipment, better pasture management, and better productive parameters and practices were observed in larger farms. This suggests that those public policies aimed at improving productive and environmental performance of the livestock sector should give priority to small- and medium-sized livestock producers considering their farm characteristics.

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Section: General Farm Information 204mentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical and environmental characterization of Colombian beef cattle-fattening farms, with a focus on farm size and ways of improving production

et al. 2019

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“…In the present study, however, HS was also found to have the highest N 2 O emissions. This suggests that N 2 O emissions are not solely controlled by the N-concentration in urine but also by other factors associated with an animals’ diet and pasture management ( Dijkstra et al, 2013 ; Chirinda et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elucidating three-way interactions between soil, pasture and animals that regulate nitrous oxide emissions from temperate grazing systems

McAuliffe

López-Aizpún

Blackwell

et al. 2020

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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Highlights Urinary nitrogen concentrations were lowest on animals consuming high sugar grasses. However, soil under high sugar grasses recorded the highest N 2 O emissions. Synthetic urine generated N 2 O emissions inconsistent with locally collected urine. Differences in emissions amongst systems were explained by gene abundance ratios. Results indicate the importance of soil-pasture-animal-microbiome interactions.

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“…On the one hand, they increase livestock productivity and reduce system vulnerability. On the other hand, they improve environmental services by maintaining biodiversity and, decreasing beef cattle methane yield and intensity (Cezimbra, 2015) and nitrous oxide emission factor from urine (Chirinda et al, 2019).…”

Section: Intensification Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Native Grasslands at the Core: A New Paradigm of Intensification for the Campos of Southern South America to Increase Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Jaurena¹,

Durante²,

Devincenzi³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Extensive livestock production in southern South America occupies ~0.5 M km2 in central-eastern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil. These systems have been sustained for more than 300 years by year-long grazing of the highly biodiverse native Campos ecosystems that provides many valuable additional ecosystem services. However, their low productivity (~70 kg liveweight/ha per year), at least relative to values recorded in experiments and by best farmers, has been driving continued land use conversion towards agriculture and forestry. Therefore, there is a pressing need for usable, cost effective technological options based on scientific knowledge that increase profitability while supporting the conservation of native grasslands. In the early 2000s, existing knowledge was synthesized in a path of six sequential steps of increasing intensification. Even though higher productivity underlined that path, it was recognized that trade-offs would occur, with increases in productivity being concomitant to reductions in diversity, resilience to droughts, and a higher exposure to financial risks. Here, we put forward a proposal to shift the current paradigm away from a linear sequence and toward a flexible dashboard of intensification options to be implemented in defined modules within a farm whose aims are (i) to maintain native grasslands as the main feed source, and (ii) ameliorate its two major productive drawbacks: marked seasonality and relatively rapid loss of low nutritive value-hence the title “native grasslands at the core.” At its center, the proposal highlights a key role for optimal grazing management of native grasslands to increase productivity and resilience while maintaining low system wide costs and financial risk, but acknowledges that achieving the required spatio-temporal control of grazing intensity requires using (a portfolio of) complementary, synergistic intensification options. We sum up experimental evidence and case studies supporting the hypothesis that integrating intensification options increases both profitability and environmental sustainability of livestock production in Campos ecosystems.

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Adequate vegetative cover decreases nitrous oxide emissions from cattle urine deposited in grazed pastures under rainy season conditions

Cited by 29 publications

References 48 publications

Technical and environmental characterization of Colombian beef cattle-fattening farms, with a focus on farm size and ways of improving production

Technical and environmental characterization of Colombian beef cattle-fattening farms, with a focus on farm size and ways of improving production

Elucidating three-way interactions between soil, pasture and animals that regulate nitrous oxide emissions from temperate grazing systems

Native Grasslands at the Core: A New Paradigm of Intensification for the Campos of Southern South America to Increase Economic and Environmental Sustainability

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