The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has published the first enteric methane across breed evaluations on artificial insemination (AI) sires with phenotyped commercial progeny.
Enteric methane is a by-product of the natural digestive process which occurs in cattle.
The new evaluations are the result of a “collaborative effort” between ICBF, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Teagasc and are based on individual animal methane records from over 1,500 animals representing 19 different breeds.
According to the ICBF primary data for the evaluations was gathered from a number of projects including Greenbreed, RumenPredict and Master.
In a statement the ICBF said:
“Methane evaluations will become an essential part of the broader effort to improve the sustainability of Irish farming.
“By providing farmers with methane data, they will be able to identify opportunities to reduce emissions and improve the sustainability of their enterprise.”
Research suggests there are large differences in “daily methane emissions” between animals fed the same diet and that 11% of those differences can be attributed to “genetic differences”.
GHG emissions
The ICBF highlighted in its statement that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, “with a global warming potential more than 25 times that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year timescale”.
It also underlined that methane emissions from livestock, “particularly cows, are a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions”.
According to the federation reducing methane emissions from livestock “is an important step in mitigating climate change” as well as improving the efficiency of both dairy and beef cattle production systems.
Recording programme
The ICBF has detailed that large -scale recording programmes are required to facilitate genetic selection for reduced emissions.
The federation through the Co. Kildare based Tully Progeny Performance Test Centre has started a large-scale recording programme using a GreenFeed system which capture cattle’s breath and analyses the gases for trace constituents, including methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2).
The Tully centre slaughters 650 animals (steers, bulls and heifers) annually which includes 55% suckler bred and 45% from dairy dams
The federation believes that “breeding programs to reduce daily methane emissions will be fruitful especially when undertaken in tandem with the national genomic evaluations for age at slaughter released last year”.
Genetics
ICBF is confident that genetics will play an essential role in reducing methane emissions.
In the statement it highlighted that selective breeding and genetic modification approaches “offer promising solutions for producing cows that are less methane-intensive and more environmentally friendly”.
According to ICBF Methane PTAs (Predicted Transmitting Ability figures) will be available for AI sires that have had progeny with methane data recorded in the Tully Progeny Performance Test Centre.
ICBF says that it wants to also collaborate with other research organisations to expand its database and to include more systems of production such as grass-based diets and lactating cows.
It said this will result in more Methane PTA’ becoming available for genotyped animals.
The federation is now developing methods on how best to include a methane trait in the dairy (EBI), dairy-beef (DBI) and beef (Terminal and Replacement indices) are currently being developed.