Rapid Communication: Ranking dairy cows for methane emissions measured using respiration chamber or GreenFeed techniques during early, peak, and late lactation

Abstract

Our objective was to compare the ranking of dairy cows according to their methane (CH) emissions as measured by a respiration chamber (RC) technique and the GreenFeed (GF) technique during 3 periods in second lactation. Two-day CH measurements in a RC performed in wk 3, 14, and 42 of lactation were flanked by GF measurements for 20 (period 1 [P1]), 35 (period 2 [P2]), and 35 (period 3 [P3]) days, respectively, before and after RC measurement. This gave the total duration of CH measurements using the GF system of 40, 70, and 70 d for P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Mean daily CH production (g/d) of the 8 dairy cows was 346, 439, and 430 using the RC technique and 338, 378, and 416 using the GF system during P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Average daily CH production determined by the GF technique was 2.4, 13.8, and 3.2% lower in P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Methane normalized to DMI continuously increased from P1 to P3 when measured in a RC, whereas it was lowest during P2 when measured by the GF method. Ranking of the cows according to CH production, CH/energy-corrected milk yield (ECM; CH/ECM), and CH/DMI differed between periods no matter which method was used. Cluster analysis including all 3 periods, however, identified the same cows with the highest and lowest CH production determined either by the RC technique or the GF system. In conclusion, multiple CH measurements at different stages of lactation are necessary for reliable discrimination of highest and lowest CH emitting cows and the GF system may be used to discriminate the extremes.

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

“…The rate of CH 4 emission also changes across days (Grainger et al, 2007), with physiological state (growing, lactating and non-lactating) (Ricci et al, 2013), during lactation (early, mid, peak and late) (Rischewski et al, 2017), and from one lactation period to the next. Thus, it is important to understand the phenotypic and genetic relationships between methane emissions recorded at different points in time during an animal's life to understand the implications for selection based on CH 4 emissions recorded at a particular point in time, allowing the optimization of recording strategies.…”

Comparison of 3 methods for estimating enteric methane and carbon dioxide emission in nonlactating cows

“…The 5 studies cited by Hammond et al (2016a) and 4 among the 5 trials of Jonker et al (2016) did not show significant differences in CH 4 emission between GF and OC. Comparing these techniques in dairy cows at 3 lactation stages, Rischewski et al (2017) did not find differences in emissions, but noted a higher yield for chambers at the 3 stages due to lower DMI in chambers. Among the 5 comparisons between OC and SF 6 cited by Hammond et al (2016a), 4 did not show any difference and 1 (Muñoz et al, 2012) resulted in a higher value for SF 6 (+10%); among the 5 trials cited by Jonker et al (2016), 4 did not show differences, whereas 1 resulted in a higher value for OC.…”

“…Comparisons between techniques for CH 4 daily emissions have been summarized and analyzed by Hammond et al (2016a) in a review; most comparisons have been published since 2012. Two recent papers complete this panel of comparisons (Jonker et al, 2016, Rischewski et al, 2017. Only 2 studies compared the 3 techniques simultaneously (1 trial by Garnett, 2012;5 studies by Jonker et al, 2016), but complementary information is given by paired comparisons between 2 techniques.…”

Genetic control of methane emission, feed efficiency and metagenomics in dairy cattle

“…The GreenFeed system has been compared to RC and has shown mixed results for agreement, with poor concordance (CCC = 0.1) in dairy cattle but high concordance in beef cattle (CCC = 0.84) . In most studies, the accuracy was not significantly different from that of the RC, but the GreenFeed had higher variation and was less precise Jonker et al, 2016;Rischewski et al, 2017). Typical sources of imprecision for the GreenFeed include the duration and number of visits.…”

“…The rate of CH 4 emission also changes from day to day (Grainger et al, 2007), according to physiological state (growing, lactating and non-lactating) (Ricci et al, 2013), within lactation (early, mid, peak and late) (Rischewski et al, 2017), and from lactation to lactation. It is important to understand the phenotypic and genetic relationships between methane emissions recorded at different points in time during an animal's life to better understand the implications for selection based on CH 4 emission recorded at a particular point in time, in order to optimise recording strategies.…”