Section 20: Ongoing activities

Global Methane Genetics

If you have questions about the GMG program you can contact Birgit Gredler-Grandl: birgit.gredler-grandl@wur.nl or Roel Veerkamp: roel.veerkamp@wur.nl.

1.1 Dairy Cattle

We can look to nature to reduce CH4 emissions and use genetic diversity to provide solutions. Genetic improvement, based on identifying animals with genetic predisposition for lower CH4 output and using them to breed for the next generations, is a reliable, cost-effective, and permanent method for transforming livestock's impact on the environment.  Breeding programs in dairy cattle are run within breeds and across countries. Therefore, the program will accelerate genetic progress by focusing on four major dairy breeds and organizations and countries involved in those breeds. Additionally, the program will acquire considerable leverage through investments in these countries. If you have questions about the dairy cattle section you can contact: Trine Villumsen: tmv@qgg.au.dk.

Holstein breed

The largest data collection has been for the Holstein breed, but there is a lack of standardization and protocols in terms of equipment and its utilization (farm level, data processing, data sharing agreements, genetic evaluations, and data collections). Governments and breeding organizations in Denmark and the Netherlands will collaborate and collect methane and genotypes on more than 20,000 Holstein cows for the GMG database. Also, Poland and Italy team up to collect data for the GMG database, and their aim is also to collect more than 20,000 Holstein animals and develop genetic evaluations across a wide range of systems.

DNK-NLD

This collaboration between Aarhus University and Wageningen Livestock Research has five main goals.

• Setting up Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for measuring methane using sniffers
• Setting up international protocols to measure methane on commercial farms
• Develop software tools to automate the processing of data into a phenotype
• Combine historical data in both countries for genetic evaluations
• Measure enteric methane in 20.000 new cows.

PLD-ITL

This collaboration has the following main goals.

• Measure enteric methane in 20.000 new cows.

Jersey breed

Currently, due to the limited data available, the Jersey dairy breed does not have breeding values for methane (CH4) mitigation. The goal of the program is to collect methane genotypes in Canada and Denmark and share this information with the GMG database. The aim is to develop breeding values that will be distributed through the World Jersey Cattle Bureau organization and national Jersey organizations in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Brown Swiss breed

The Brown Swiss (BS) breed faces significant challenges due to its small population size, an divers environments the animals are kept. A collaboration between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria to phenotype enough animals is a prerequisite for utilizing the genetic potential of reducing methane emission of the BS breed. In addition to a population of 250 cows recorded with Greenfeed, and 1250 with the sniffer, progress will be accelerated by recording an additional 3,360 cows with sniffers.

Red breeds

The red breeds are important for crossbreeding in many countries around the world. The project aims to share and collect CH4 data from Red Dairy Cattle (RDC) breeds (in the Nordic countries, Canada, and the United Kingdom (UK)) and share it with the Global Methane Genetics (GMG) Hub. Together, they will set up a shared genetic evaluation for bulls used for crossbreeding in many more countries.

The program will be run in conjunction with the Global Methane Genetics initiative and aligns strongly to the Global Methane Hub (GMH) Enteric Fermentation R&D Accelerator to ensure that this work complements and builds on cutting edge knowledge and science ongoing in genetics and genomics, within the overall GMH strategy.