Ranking cows’ methane emissions under commercial conditions with sniffers versus respiration chambers

Difford, Gareth Frank; Olijhoek, D.W.; Hellwing, Anne Louise Frydendahl; Lund, Peter; Bjerring, Morten; Haas, Y. de; Lassen, Jan; Løvendahl, Peter

doi:10.1080/09064702.2019.1572784

Cited by 17 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…One way to overcome these cost limitations is to either test whether similar results are obtained across methods directly (method agreement) at the phenotype level or estimate individual level correlations as a proxy for genetic correlations (Difford et al, 2019). When assessing method agreement between the RC and alternative methods, it is important to assess the relative accuracy, precision and linear association between alternative methods and the gold standard (Barnhart et al, 2007a).…”

Section: Alternative Methods Of Recording Methane Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bulls that produce offspring that cannot live up to the general breeding goal would not be selected as superior bulls. Current results on correlations between methane emission and other traits (Table 2) show that selection for reduced methane emissions likely has minimal consequences on other traits, such as reproduction and health (Zetouni et al, 2018b;Pszczola et al, 2019); however, CH 4 production is related to milk production (Lassen and Løvendahl, 2016;Breider et al, 2019;Difford et al, 2019), as well as DMI (Breider et al, 2018;Difford et al, 2019). Still more analyses on the correlation structure to other traits are needed on larger data sets to confirm or deny such relationships.…”

Section: Genetic Correlations Between the Ch 4 Emissions Of Existing mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This could also lead to bad feed efficiency since DM digestion is decreased. Recently, Difford et al (2019) estimated genetic correlations between feed efficiency traits and CH 4 concentration (ppm) in two separate Holstein populations. The authors found CH 4 concentration was a strong indicator trait for feed efficiency.…”

Section: Improving the Selection Accuracy Of Ch 4 Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review: Genetic and genomic selection as a methane mitigation strategy in dairy cattle

Lassen¹,

Difford

2020

Animal

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Over the last decade, extensive research effort has been placed on developing methane mitigation strategies in ruminants. Many disciplines on animal science disciplines have been involved, including nutrition and physiology, microbiology and genetic selection. To date, few of the suggested strategies have been implemented because: (1) methane emissions currently have no direct or indirect economic value for farmers, with no financial incentive to change practices and (2) most strategies have limited, or no, long-term effects. Consequently, there is a fundamental need for research on methane mitigation strategies across disciplines. Coordinated international initiatives similar to METHAGENE could represent highly relevant coordination tool of collaboration between countries, facilitating knowledge exchange, sharing concerns and building future collaborations.

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Section: Alternative Methods Of Recording Methane Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Genetic Correlations Between the Ch 4 Emissions Of Existing mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Improving the Selection Accuracy Of Ch 4 Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review: Genetic and genomic selection as a methane mitigation strategy in dairy cattle

Lassen¹,

Difford

2020

Animal

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“…Some animal breeding programs use a 'sniffer' technique to measure breath CH 4 concentration at a feeder or during milking. Although this technique has many sources of error (source-sampling distance, air turbulence, cow's head movement; Wu et al, 2018), it has been shown to be correlated (r = 0.75) to flux methods when used by skilled researchers (Difford et al, 2019). Additionally, the development of proxies (see the 'Biomarkers to estimate methane emissions' section) that are highly correlated with CH 4 production would be beneficial for identifying low-CH 4 animals in a genetic selection program (Negussie et al, 2017).…”

Section: Animal Breedingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Fifty years of research on rumen methanogenesis: lessons learned and future challenges for mitigation

Beauchemin

Ungerfeld

Eckard

et al. 2020

Animal

296

207

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Meat and milk from ruminants provide an important source of protein and other nutrients for human consumption. Although ruminants have a unique advantage of being able to consume forages and graze lands not suitable for arable cropping, 2% to 12% of the gross energy consumed is converted to enteric CH4 during ruminal digestion, which contributes approximately 6% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, ruminant producers need to find cost-effective ways to reduce emissions while meeting consumer demand for food. This paper provides a critical review of the substantial amount of ruminant CH4-related research published in past decades, highlighting hydrogen flow in the rumen, the microbiome associated with methanogenesis, current and future prospects for CH4 mitigation and insights into future challenges for science, governments, farmers and associated industries. Methane emission intensity, measured as emissions per unit of meat and milk, has continuously declined over the past decades due to improvements in production efficiency and animal performance, and this trend is expected to continue. However, continued decline in emission intensity will likely be insufficient to offset the rising emissions from increasing demand for animal protein. Thus, decreases in both emission intensity (g CH4/animal product) and absolute emissions (g CH4/day) are needed if the ruminant industries continue to grow. Providing producers with cost-effective options for decreasing CH4 emissions is therefore imperative, yet few cost-effective approaches are currently available. Future abatement may be achieved through animal genetics, vaccine development, early life programming, diet formulation, use of alternative hydrogen sinks, chemical inhibitors and fermentation modifiers. Individually, these strategies are expected to have moderate effects (<20% decrease), with the exception of the experimental inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol for which decreases in CH4 have consistently been greater (20% to 40% decrease). Therefore, it will be necessary to combine strategies to attain the sizable reduction in CH4 needed, but further research is required to determine whether combining anti-methanogenic strategies will have consistent additive effects. It is also not clear whether a decrease in CH4 production leads to consistent improved animal performance, information that will be necessary for adoption by producers. Major constraints for decreasing global enteric CH4 emissions from ruminants are continued expansion of the industry, the cost of mitigation, the difficulty of applying mitigation strategies to grazing ruminants, the inconsistent effects on animal performance and the paucity of information on animal health, reproduction, product quality, cost-benefit, safety and consumer acceptance.

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“…Individual level of correlation was calculated using variance components applying the statistical model described previously but including the stage of lactation and lactation number as fixed effects [21].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison Between Non-Invasive Methane Measurement Techniques in Cattle

Rey

Atxaerandio

Ruíz

et al. 2019

Animals

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The aim of this trial was to study the agreement between the non-dispersive infrared methane analyzer (NDIR) method and the hand held laser methane detector (LMD). Methane (CH4) was measured simultaneously with the two devices totaling 164 paired measurements. The repeatability of the CH4 concentration was greater with the NDIR (0.42) than for the LMD (0.23). However, for the number of peaks, repeatability of the LMD was greater (0.20 vs. 0.14, respectively). Correlation was moderately high and positive for CH4 concentration (0.73 and 0.74, respectively) and number of peaks (0.72 and 0.72, respectively), and the repeated measures correlation and the individual-level correlation were high (0.98 and 0.94, respectively). A moderate concordance correlation coefficient was observed for the CH4 concentration (0.62) and for the number of peaks (0.66). A moderate-high coefficient of individual agreement for the CH4 concentration (0.83) and the number of peaks (0.77) were observed. However, CH4 concentrations population means and all variance components differed between instruments. In conclusion, methane concentration measurements obtained by means of NDIR and LMD cannot be used interchangeably. The joint use of both methods could be considered for genetic selection purposes or for mitigation strategies only if sources of disagreement, which result in different between-subject and within-subject variabilities, are identified and corrected for.

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Ranking cows’ methane emissions under commercial conditions with sniffers versus respiration chambers

Cited by 17 publications

References 39 publications

Review: Genetic and genomic selection as a methane mitigation strategy in dairy cattle

Review: Genetic and genomic selection as a methane mitigation strategy in dairy cattle

Review: Fifty years of research on rumen methanogenesis: lessons learned and future challenges for mitigation

Comparison Between Non-Invasive Methane Measurement Techniques in Cattle

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