Low-methane sheep a reality
Farmers will soon be able to breed low-methane sheep via a ‘‘world first’’ genetics scheme.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand has added low-methane production to the list of traits breeders can target when choosing rams.
Farmers already use several breeding values (BVs) to select animals with characteristics they want to strengthen in their flocks, including meat yield and lamb survival rate.
With the addition of a methane BV, they could also breed animals that produced less of the agricultural greenhouse gas.
King Country stud breeder Russell Proffit said his commercial farmer clients had shown interest in the methane BV. ‘‘Farmers are more interested than I anticipated. They are thinking about this issue and looking for ways to make progress.’’
Proffit’s family has been producing rams for 40 years and began breeding lower-input sheep – animals that are naturally able to stave off common health problems – 20 years ago.
He had taken part in methane BV measurement to test his theory that a healthy animal should produce less methane.
‘‘I don’t know if that’s the case yet but either way breeding for less methane complements what we are working to achieve on our stud. That is, more robust rams that require less inputs and make less demand on the environment,’’ Proffit said.
Breeders who wanted to produce low-methane rams would need to measure a portion of their flock using portable accumulation chambers.
Sheep spend 50 minutes in the chambers, where their gas emissions are measured. The process would be repeated 14 days later, with the results used to calculate the methane breeding value.
‘‘Up until now, the only option available to farmers wanting to lower their greenhouse gas emissions has been to constantly improve their overall farming efficiency.’’ Mark Aspin
Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium general manager
Farmers would have access to breeding rams within two years, the time it would take to breed and grow rams on a commercial scale.
The launch of the tool follows a 10-year multimillion-dollar collaboration between the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium (PGGRC), the New Zealand
Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre and AgResearch, supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for Primary Industries.
PGGRC general manager Mark Aspin said the methane BV tool was a global first for any species of livestock. ‘‘Up until now, the only option available to farmers wanting to lower their greenhouse gas emissions has been to constantly improve their overall farming efficiency.’’
The tool took farmers a step closer to actually lowering sheep methane emissions, he said.
Although progress through breeding could be slow – about 1 per cent per year, assuming a breeder was selecting only for methane – it was cumulative and didn’t have a negative impact on productivity.
Aspin said the biggest influence on methane emissions was the amount of feed an animal ate, and work was continuing on three other technologies focused on reducing methane generated by feed. ‘‘So, by breeding sheep that produce less methane per mouthful eaten – as other methane-reducing technologies come on stream – the influence of these sheep on the national flock’s methane production becomes compounding.’’