Greenhouse gas emissions, dry matter intake and feed efficiency of young Holstein bulls

Callegaro, Simone; Niero, Giovanni; Penasa, M.; Finocchiaro, R.; Invernizzi, G.; Cassandro, Martino

doi:10.1080/1828051x.2022.2071178

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Therefore, dynamic association studies could help in identifying potential physiological mechanisms to enhance feedand milk-production efficiency. Overall, there are many potential avenues to improve availability of DMI phenotypes both directly and indirectly, such as use of intermediate phenotypes such as milk mid-infrared spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic-resonance data, and cow methane emission due to its correlation with DMI (Herd et al 2014;Callegaro et al 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of dry-matter intake recorded at multiple time periods during lactation increases the accuracy of genomic prediction for dry-matter intake and residual feed intake in dairy cattle

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context Feed is the largest expense on a dairy farm, therefore improving feed efficiency is important. Recording dry-matter intake (DMI) is a prerequisite for calculating feed efficiency. Genetic variation of feed intake and feed efficiency varies across lactation stages and parities. DMI is an expensive and difficult-to-measure trait. This raises the question of which time periods during lactation would be most appropriate to measure DMI. Aims The aim was to evaluate whether sequence variants selected from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for DMI recorded at multiple lactation time periods and parities would increase the accuracy of genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) for DMI and residual feed intake (RFI). Methods Data of 2274 overseas lactating cows were used for the GWAS to select sequence variants. GWAS was performed using the average of the DMI phenotypes in a 30-day window of six different time periods across the lactation. The most significant sequence variants were selected from the GWAS at each time period for either first or later parities. GEBVs for DMI and RFI in Australian lactating cows were estimated using BayesRC with 50 k single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and selected GWAS sequence variants. Key results There were differences in DMI genomic correlations and heritabilities between first and later parities and within parity across lactation time periods. Compared with using 50 k single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) only, the accuracy of DMI GEBVs increased by up to 11% by using the 50 k SNPs plus the selected sequence variants. Compared with DMI, the increase in accuracy for RFI was lower (by 6%) likely because the sequence variants were selected from GWAS for DMI not RFI. The accuracies for DMI and RFI GEBVs were highest by using selected sequence variants from the DMI GWAS in the mid- to late-lactation periods in later parity. Conclusions Our results showed that DMI phenotypes in late lactation time periods could capture more genetic variation and increase genomic prediction accuracy through the use of custom genotype panels in genomic selection. Implications Collecting DMI at the optimal time period(s) of lactation may help develop more accurate and cost-effective breeding values for feed efficiency in dairy cattle.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of dry-matter intake recorded at multiple time periods during lactation increases the accuracy of genomic prediction for dry-matter intake and residual feed intake in dairy cattle

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The advent of molecular gene markers has created the opportunity to accurately identify cattle with desirable genes and to then use ART to rapidly multiply and disseminate cattle with improved feed efficiency and growth performance. Efficient cattle were reported in one study to have reduced CH 4 (g/day) and CO 2equivalent (g/day) emissions (Callegaro et al, 2022). The breeding technology used to generate efficient cattle will be governed by the production system and resources available.…”

Section: Balancing Feed Efficiency In Meat and Milk Production With F...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying assisted reproductive technology and reproductive management to reduce CO2-equivalent emission in dairy and beef cattle: a review

Baruselli,

Abreu,

Paula

et al. 2023

Anim. Reprod.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Methane emission from beef and dairy cattle combined contributes around 4.5-5.0% of total anthropogenic global methane. In addition to enteric methane (CH 4 ) produced by the rumen, cattle production also contributes carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) (feed), nitrous oxide (N 2 O) (feed production, manure) and other CH 4 (manure) to the total greenhouse gas (GHG) budget of beef and dairy production systems. The relative contribution in standard dairy systems is typically enteric CH 4 58%, feed 29% and manure 10%. Herds with low production efficiency can have an enteric CH 4 contribution up to 90%. Digestibility of feed can impact CH 4 emission intensity. Low fertility herds also have a greater enteric CH 4 contribution. Animals with good feed conversion efficiency have a lower emission intensity of CH 4 /kg of meat or milk. Feed efficient heifers tend to be lean and have delayed puberty. Fertility is a major driver of profit in both beef and dairy cattle, and it is highly important to apply multi-trait selection when shifting herds towards improved efficiency and reduced CH 4 . Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been identified for feed efficiency in cattle and are used in genomic selection. SNPs can be utilized in artificial insemination and embryo transfer to increase the proportion of cattle that have the attributes of efficiency, fertility and reduced enteric CH 4 . Prepubertal heifers genomically selected for favourable traits can have oocytes recovered to produce IVF embryos. Reproductive technology is predicted to be increasingly adopted to reduce generation interval and accelerate the rate of genetic gain for efficiency, fertility and low CH 4 in cattle. The relatively high contribution of cattle to anthropogenic global methane has focussed attention on strategies to reduce enteric CH 4 without compromising efficiency and fertility. Assisted reproductive technology has an important role in achieving the goal of multiplying and distributing cattle that have good efficiency, fertility and low CH 4 .

show abstract

“…Some studies observed a repeatability of RFI from growing to lactating phase [8,9], indicating that RFI may be a lifetime trait. Thus, the determination of RFI in young calves may be simpler and cheaper and might accelerate genetic progress [10]. Most published Life 2023, 13, 1727 2 of 10 studies focus on weaned calves, despite the impact of pre-weaning on the productive success of future cows and on feeding expenses in dairy farms [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Residual Feed Intake as an Efficiency Metric for Pre-Weaning Dairy Calves: What Do We Know?

Silva

Leão²,

Lage

et al. 2023

Life

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dairy cattle systems have targeted improvements in feed efficiency by selecting animals that can convert less feed into more products. Residual feed intake (RFI) has been the index of choice when selecting dairy cattle for feed efficiency. Nonetheless, RFI studies have focused on lactating cows, and the crucial importance of pre-weaning efficiency on farm profitability and cow productivity has been mostly neglected. This review discusses the current knowledge of how RFI divergence relates to nutrient metabolism in pre-weaning dairy calves, including the advantages and limitations of evaluating RFI in this phase. Existing literature indicates that nutrient utilization, energy metabolism, protein metabolism, vitamin metabolism, intestinal development, and hindgut bacterial populations may be implicated in RFI divergence between pre-weaning calves. Techniques developed to date to evaluate RFI in this phase are still evolving to better adapt to the unique characteristics of this phase, and more research is needed to fill in the gaps in our current understanding of early-life feed efficiency divergence in cattle. However, current results suggest great potential for selecting high-efficiency calves while in pre-weaning to accelerate the progress of genetic selection in dairy cattle.

show abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions, dry matter intake and feed efficiency of young Holstein bulls

Cited by 3 publications

References 38 publications

Use of dry-matter intake recorded at multiple time periods during lactation increases the accuracy of genomic prediction for dry-matter intake and residual feed intake in dairy cattle

Use of dry-matter intake recorded at multiple time periods during lactation increases the accuracy of genomic prediction for dry-matter intake and residual feed intake in dairy cattle

Applying assisted reproductive technology and reproductive management to reduce CO2-equivalent emission in dairy and beef cattle: a review

Residual Feed Intake as an Efficiency Metric for Pre-Weaning Dairy Calves: What Do We Know?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About