Farmers, artificial intelligence have key roles

As the payload of science intensifies, and new research becomes available, dairy farmers are willing to embrace the new knowledge and implement it on their farms. Their only hope is that other industries, outside of agriculture, also realize, admit and accept that they, too, have major responsibilities in helping countries reach their net-zero targets.

Management decisions first steps

Tinkering with feed, both in concentrate form and grass, can help reduce the overall amounts of gases being produced by cows. Cows produce methane when the feed they consume is digested in their gastrointestinal tract; it’s also produced from manure.

Various research has looked at reducing the protein content of a cow’s diet and how that affects the volume of methane produced. Studies show that cows can be fed about 10 percent less protein without affecting a cow’s health or reducing milk production. It can be achieved by reducing the protein content of the concentrates cows consume, and by increasing the amount of maize silage fed.

Research carried out at Wageningen in The Netherlands looked at roughage in the diet, and measured the methane produced in special respiration chambers. Those trials found that it was more beneficial to feed cows grass silage made from shorter, leafier grass than grass mown at a later stage of growth.

Harvesting grass at later stages of growth produced silage that was stiffer and more difficult to digest. Eating young grass or young grass silage resulted in as much as 30 percent less methane emissions.

On the flip side, though, young grass contains a lot of nitrogen. So it’s important to reduce nitrogen content in the rest of the cow’s diet if going that route.

Feeding more maize silage was found to be one of the better methods of reducing methane and ammonia levels produced by cows. Because maize silage has less protein, it provides starch – which partially bypasses the rumen, producing less methane. It’s converted in the small intestine into glucose – energy for the cow. That process improves the utilization of nitrogen in the cow, so less of it ends in the cow’s urine.

Smarter breeding means less gas

There’s a general consensus that smaller cows naturally produce less methane, which can be relative to the different microbial communities those animals house. Research by the University of Pennsylvania-School of Veterinary Medicine identified key differences between cows that naturally emit less methane than average. The scientists found that differences in methane emissions were accompanied by differences in microbial populations as well as their fermentation pathways.

The researchers wrote, “Lesser methane emitters are more-efficient cows. Methane formation is an energy-inefficient process, so reducing methane production gives that energy back to the cow to use for metabolic activities – including improved growth rate and milk production.”

The goal of the team was to breed animals that naturally emit less methane. Cows naturally vary in how much methane each emits, and prior studies suggested that the variation is partially heritable.

The scientists first identified five lesser-methane-emitting cows and five greater-methane-emitting cows from a herd of 130 lactating Holstein cows housed at the university. On average, the lesser emitters produced about 22 percent less methane than the greater emitters, corresponding to 126 kilograms of methane per year per cow instead of 160 kilograms per year.

The researchers then set out to characterize the differences between those lesser and greater emitters in terms of their genetics, milk production, rumen fermentation and rumen microbiomes. Overall, there was no difference between lesser and greater methane emitters in terms of food intake, amount of milk produced or milk composition – though the lesser-methane emitters did digest less of the food they consumed.

But there were major differences in the rumen microbes and fermentation patterns of the lesser- and greater-methane-emitting cows because methane is produced via microbial fermentation. Lesser-methane-emitting cows housed fewer types of microbes in their rumens, and their microbes were less likely to be methane producers or methanogens.

When the researchers compared the gene expression of ruminal microbes in lesser versus greater emitters, a measure of how often the microbes are using those genes, they found that lesser emitters had smaller levels of methyl-CoM reductase, an enzyme that’s involved in methane formation. Lesser-methane-emitting cows also tended to have smaller statures than greater emitters.

Going forward, the team is investigating whether it’s possible to selectively breed dairy cows to have efficient microbiomes. To even further reduce methane emissions, those results could be combined with other management strategies – for example by feeding synthetic or algal methane inhibitors to lesser-methane-emitting cows.

Artificial intelligence offers insights

Computer scientists at the United Kingdom’s Loughborough University have developed artificial-intelligence tools that offer insights into how greenhouse-gas emissions associated with livestock farming and land use can be reduced. Those tools, which are hosted on an online digital platform, aim to provide farmers, farming organizations and government bodies with valuable data regarding how changes in livestock practices and land use can help the UK achieve its 2050-net-zero goal.

Developed by a team led by professors Baihua Li and Qinggang Meng, key features of the platform include machine-learning models designed to estimate methane emissions from livestock farming, predict milk productivity and ammonia emissions from dairy farms, and analyze how land use and environmental factors influence methane emissions across the UK.

Li said, “Our mission is to bridge the gap between innovation and practicality, offering a platform that supports data-driven decisions to combat climate change, advance sustainable farming and achieve global net-zero-emissions goals.

“By harnessing (artificial intelligence), our platform can offer data-driven insights that can help forecast future emissions based on a diverse range of data, giving stakeholders actionable intelligence to make cost-effective proactive decisions.”

Using diverse livestock and environmental datasets, the Loughborough University artificial-intelligence models analyze how various factors interact to impact emissions. That will provide farm-level and nation-wide insights that can help shape strategies to support the UK’s net-zero goal.

The tool design means farmers simply input details about specific animals and practices to estimate current annual greenhouse-gas emissions. They then can explore potential changes to management practices by selecting options from drop-down menus or by entering variable values. Those adjustments provide immediate insights into potential impact on both emissions and farm productivity. One tool is designed specifically for dairy farmers, helping them estimate how their current practices affect individual cow-milk yield and ammonia levels in waste.

So far the research has shown that methane emissions have been increasing year after year. Agriculturally-arable land and improved grassland used for livestock farming have been identified by the researchers as key contributors, closely linked to methane hotspots.

The next stage for the researchers is to further refine and test their artificial-intelligence models before the tools are released, which requires additional data and funding.

This is an original article written for Agri-View, a Lee Enterprises agricultural publication based in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit AgriView.com for more information.