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Feed supplement greatly reduces dairy cow methane emissions
http://news.psu.edu/story/364787/2015/08/04/research/feed-supplement-greatly-reduces-dairy-cow-methane-emissions[font face=Serif][font size=5]Feed supplement greatly reduces dairy cow methane emissions[/font]
By Jeff Mulhollem
August 4, 2015
[font size=3]UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A supplement added to the feed of high-producing dairy cows reduced methane emissions by 30 percent and could have ramifications for global climate change, according to an international team of researchers.
In addition, over the course of the 12-week study conducted at Penn State's dairy barns, cows that consumed a feed regimen supplemented by the novel methane inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol -- or 3NOP -- gained 80 percent more body weight than cows in a control group. Significantly, feed intake, fiber digestibility and milk production by cows that consumed the supplement did not decrease.
The findings are noteworthy because methane is a potent greenhouse gas. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that methane from livestock makes up 25 percent of the total methane emissions in the United States. Globally, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, animal agriculture emits 44 percent of the methane produced by human activity.
Fermentation in the rumen -- one of the four stomach chambers of livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats -- generates the methane, as a result of microorganisms that aid in the process of digestion. The animals must expel the gas to survive. The 3NOP supplement blocks an enzyme necessary to catalyze the last step of methane creation by the microbes in the rumen.
...[/font][/font]
By Jeff Mulhollem
August 4, 2015
[font size=3]UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A supplement added to the feed of high-producing dairy cows reduced methane emissions by 30 percent and could have ramifications for global climate change, according to an international team of researchers.
In addition, over the course of the 12-week study conducted at Penn State's dairy barns, cows that consumed a feed regimen supplemented by the novel methane inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol -- or 3NOP -- gained 80 percent more body weight than cows in a control group. Significantly, feed intake, fiber digestibility and milk production by cows that consumed the supplement did not decrease.
The findings are noteworthy because methane is a potent greenhouse gas. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that methane from livestock makes up 25 percent of the total methane emissions in the United States. Globally, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, animal agriculture emits 44 percent of the methane produced by human activity.
Fermentation in the rumen -- one of the four stomach chambers of livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats -- generates the methane, as a result of microorganisms that aid in the process of digestion. The animals must expel the gas to survive. The 3NOP supplement blocks an enzyme necessary to catalyze the last step of methane creation by the microbes in the rumen.
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