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Symposium on genetic selection as effective methane mitigation tool in livestock: a recap of a successful day
Genetic selection is a reliable, cost-effective, accumulative and permanent methane mitigation tool, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
On Tuesday 15 October the symposium "Genetic selection as effective
methane mitigation tool in livestock" on behalf of Anouk van Breukelen's PhD defence took place. National and international visitors and speakers were welcomed by Roel Veerkamp, head of the Animal Breeding and Genomics department of Wageningen Livestock Research. The first speaker to give a presentation was Birgit Gredler-Grandl, researcher at Wageningen University & Research, Animal Breeding and Genomics (WUR-ABG).
Birgit's presentation focused on the Global Methane Genetics program (GMG): a global program to accelerate genetic progress for reduced methane emissions. She discussed the different recording techniques for methane (such as respiration chambers and Sniffers), trait definitions, how the program is progressing (really well), the challenges and needs faced in the methane space, and the GMG future plans. For more information, please have a look at the PDF-file of Birgit's presentation.
Birgit's presentation was followed by a presentation by Marcin Pszczola,of the Department of Genetics and Animal Breeding at Poznan University of Life Sciences, Poland. Marcin's main question was: "Selection of environmentally friendly cows - are we there yet?" The answer in a nutshell? No, not yet, but we are closer than ever! However, if we want to move forward, it is important to obtain more data. For more information, please have a look at the PDF-file of Marcin's presentation.
The third speaker, Oscar Gonzalez-Recio from INIA-CSIC, Madrid, Spain, discussed genomic and metagenomic tools for climate change mitigation in Spanish dairy cattle. He emphasized the importance of methane phenotyping and presented genetic correlations between methane traits. In addition, he zoomed in on the challenges of methane phenotyping and the correlation between the rumen microbiome composition and methane emissions (and other traits). For more information, please have a look at the PDF-file of Oscar's presentation.
The next speaker to take the stage was Michael Aldridge from the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit (ABGU) of the University of New England, Australia. Michael gave a presentation on selecting for more methane efficient sheep. He presented an informative overview of how to measure methane emissions with portable emission chambers. For more information on how they are progressing towards publishing methane EBVs for sheep, please have a look at the PDF-file of Michael's presentation.
The final speaker at the symposium was Eileen Wall from Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) in Edinburgh, UK, who discussed the net-zero climate challenge and how a biological approach (a focus on 'breeding' and 'feeding') can help reach the targets set for 2045. For more information, please have a look at the PDF-file of Eileen's presentation.
After the presentations there was plenty of time for the attendees to exchange thoughts and discuss opportunities for future research. Shortly before 15:30 pm, visitors and speakers gathered at Omnia to hear Anouk van Breukelen defend her PhD thesis "Breeding climate smart dairy cattle: from phenotyping to genetic selection for low methane emitting dairy cattle". Anouk did an excellent job and passed with distinction (i.e. Cum Laude).
A warm thank you to all the visitors and speakers who attended the symposium and Anouk's PhD defence.