Methane production in different breeds, grazing different pastures or fed a total mixed ration, as measured by a Laser Methane Detector

Abstract

Agriculture is responsible for 5% to 10% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Livestock contribute about 65% of agricultural GHG and enteric fermentation accounts for 90% of this. The global warming potential of CH4 is known to be 23 times more than that of carbon dioxide, resulting in it being a significant role player in the greenhouse gas family. The laser methane detector (LMD) is an instrument that has the potential to measure enteric CH4 emission from livestock under normal husbandry activities. This study was aimed at evaluating the efficiency and results, when using the LMD to measure CH4 production under normal production conditions. Twelve heifers, four each from the Bonsmara, Nguni and Jersey breeds, were subjected to grazing natural veld, forage sorghum under irrigation, oats pasture under irrigation or a total mixed ration. Measurements were taken late afternoon (18:00) when the animals were ruminating. Four repeated measurements, lasting 60 seconds each, were taken on 10 consecutive days on each of the production systems. The animals were adapted for a period of 14 days on the specific feed, before the measurements were taken. The Jersey heifers produced significantly less CH4 than the Bonsmara and Nguni on natural veld, with no significant differences between breeds on the forage sorghum. On natural veld the heifers generated 48% more CH4. These results thus indicate that the LMD produce sensible and repeatable measurements that can be interpreted in respect of CH4 production by cattle. The next step will be to increase the number of breeds, numbers per breed, and feeding strategies over all seasons in order to validate and build up a baseline data set on the use of the LMD to measure CH4 emissions from cattle under different grazing conditions.

Keywords: Heifers, methane emission, pastures, total mixed ration