Section 20: Ongoing activities

NOTE: This version of Section 20 has been approved by the working group's Chair. Please be aware that further revisions may occur before final review and approval by the Board and ICAR members per the Approval of Page Process.

Global Methane Genetics

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

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.

DAFNE

Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences at the University of Tuscia. Their main purpose is to collect primary emissions data from sniffers and GF to have emissions factors related to the species, breed, physiological state and diet management. They are engaged with ANAFIBJ and sharing data related to Holstein cattle with them for genetic evaluations. Currently they are running trials with sheep and buffalo.

Sheep

For this trial they are comparing 2 grazing methods using 2 groups of Sopravissana sheep, reared at the facility.

1. Rotational, 18 sheep. Turns every 4 days on strip paddocks. 18 paddocks in total; 6 heads on 3 strip paddocks per turn of grazing. After 24 days the sheep are back to the first three strips.
2. Continuous, 18 sheep. Continuous grazing on same paddock. 3 paddocks in total; 6 heads per paddock.

Subgroups for both group A and B (6 heads) are randomly arranged every day. The 18 strip paddocks are the same total size as the three continuous paddocks. They have the same number of heads grazing and the same live weight load.

Both groups are balanced for BW, receive the same hay in quantity and quality with ad libitum access and spend the same time at pasture. Daily sampling of the hay and residual per group is done, weekly sub samples of hay and residual are analyzed. In parallel fresh grass is sampled and analyzed to represent the 2 grazing methods.

The GreenFeed is located in the barn, at 9AM this barn is closed for group A and opens for group B and this switches every day. The GreenFeed is the only place they can get concentrates. Nutritional information for this concentrate can be found here. Amount of food and cup drops can be found here.

Trial started end of March 2025 and will last 1.5 months. They are using the GF adapted for small ruminants.

Buffalo

This is a continuous trial which will last 4 months per supplement tested. First they monitor the buffalo for 4 weeks without supplement as a control diet and then there will be an 8 week experimental period with the supplement diet. During the entire period the buffalo are confined to the barn.

The buffalo are separated in two groups, in adjacent pens. One group has access to a milking robot, with the MooLogger from Tecnosens. The other pen has a conventional milking system and the GreenFeed is placed facing this pen.

All buffaloes are fed the same concentrates. Nutritional information for this concentrate can be found here. Amount of food and cup drops can be found here. The buffalo’s in the GF group get the concentrates from the GF and about 1 kg of concentrates during milking operations. The buffalo’s in the sniffer group only get concentrates from the milking robot, which is about 2 kg/head/day.

To account for the emissions recorded individually at different times, they compare the emissions data aggregated on a daily basis. They are using the GF adapted for large ruminants with horns