The pilot trial, with funding from the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, measures feed intake and methane emissions – in the form of burps – from 20 young bulls destined to father the next generation of New Zealand’s dairy cows. LIC Chief Scientist Richard Spelman says results from the pilot trial are promising.

“Methane production primarily relates to how much an animal eats. We’ve accounted for this and we’re still seeing variation which suggests genetics plays a role in a dairy bull’s methane emissions – now we need more data to prove it.”

The research will now progress to a much larger study where operations have scaled up to collect measurements from 300 young bulls.

“If this genetic link is confirmed, farmers will ultimately be able to breed low methane-emitting cows from low methane-emitting bulls.”

Although methane emissions have been shown to be heritable, Spelman says they will carry out additional research to validate their findings.

“We will be methane testing daughters from the bulls that are identified to be high or low methane emitters to check their emissions are representative of their father’s.

It’s a long term project but it has the potential to deliver real benefits to farmers in the future by providing another tool to reduce their farm emissions,” Dr Spelman said.

Spelman says while breeding for more climate friendly cows is the main focus, it’s still a balancing act with other genetic traits.

“It’s really important that we understand the genetic relationships between methane and traits like milk production and fertility. We don’t want to find we are selecting against methane and inadvertently breeding cows that are less fertile.”

The welfare of the bulls taking part in the trial is constantly monitored by LIC, overseen by Ruakura Ethics Committee approving the project. The bulls can freely move around their pens; eating, drinking and sleeping when they wish.