Sustainability & efficiency

Measuring methane emissions in young bulls: a feasible shortcut to implementing more accurate genetic evaluations?

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Abstract

Selective breeding is a promising tool to mitigate enteric methane emissions from dairy cattle. Current phenotyping efforts focus mainly on lactating cows; however, a major limitation is the ability to phenotype a large number of them. One promising alternative is to measure methane emissions from young candidate bulls. The goal of this study was to quantify methane emissions in young Holstein bulls. A total of 192 Holstein bulls were evaluated from October 2024 to April 2026 in two bull studs, ABS Global (WI, USA) and URUS PEAK (WI, USA). Daily methane emissions were quantified using GreenFeed systems. Bulls between 5 and 6 months old were evaluated during 21 consecutive days (referred to as cohort). Two methane emission traits were evaluated: methane production (g/d) and residual methane production (g/d), calculated as methane production adjusted for cohort, body weight and average daily gain. Each young bull had, on average, 86 GreenFeed records (ranging from 10 to 255 records). Methane emission traits showed remarkable variation. Methane production averaged 139 g/d, ranging from 85 to 217 g/d, and residual methane production ranged from -36 to 32 g/d. Phenotypic correlation between methane production and body weight was 0.65. Future work includes estimating genetic parameters for methane traits in young bulls, and, more importantly, the estimation of genetic correlations between methane traits in young candidate bulls and lactating cows. In fact, if methane emissions in young bulls are correlated with methane emissions in lactating cows, then methane data collected in bull studs can be used to inform genetic evaluations of lactating cows.

Keywords: 2026

How to Cite:

Ajasa, A., Chud, T., Martinez-Boggio, G., McClure, M., Nani, J., Peà±agaricano, F. & Welper, B., (2026) “Measuring methane emissions in young bulls: a feasible shortcut to implementing more accurate genetic evaluations?”, World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production Digital Archive 2026(1): 2290411. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/wcgalp.24302

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