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Factors affecting methane production and mitigation in ruminants
Author(s) -
SHIBATA Masaki,
TERADA Fuminori
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
animal science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.606
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1740-0929
pISSN - 1344-3941
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-0929.2009.00687.x
Subject(s) - defaunation , greenhouse gas , ruminant , livestock , production (economics) , productivity , environmental science , dry matter , agricultural science , microbiology and biotechnology , zoology , agronomy , fermentation , biology , rumen , pasture , ecology , food science , economics , macroeconomics
ABSTRACT Methane (CH 4 ) is the second most important greenhouse gas (GHG) and that emitted from enteric fermentation in livestock is the single largest source of emissions in Japan. Many factors influence ruminant CH 4 production, including level of intake, type and quality of feeds and environmental temperature. The objectives of this review are to identify the factors affecting CH 4 production in ruminants, to examine technologies for the mitigation of CH 4 emissions from ruminants, and to identify areas requiring further research. The following equation for CH 4 prediction was formulated using only dry matter intake (DMI) and has been adopted in Japan to estimate emissions from ruminant livestock for the National GHG Inventory Report: Y = −17.766 + 42.793X − 0.849X 2 , where Y is CH 4 production (L/day) and X is DMI (kg/day). Technologies for the mitigation of CH 4 emissions from ruminants include increasing productivity by improving nutritional management, the manipulation of ruminal fermentation by changing feed composition, the addition of CH 4 inhibitors, and defaunation. Considering the importance of ruminant livestock, it is essential to establish economically feasible ways of reducing ruminant CH 4 production while improving productivity; it is therefore critical to conduct a full system analysis to select the best combination of approaches or new technologies to be applied under long‐term field conditions.