Contact
Sophie Krizsan, Reseacher
Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, SLU
Sophie.Krizsan@slu.se, 090-786 8748
SLU news
Exotic macroalgal as feed supplement to ruminants
Published: 06 November 2018
Cattle emits methane as a natural byproduct when fermenting ingested feed. Sophie Krizsan and Azam Jafari at NJV are looking at a how to use Algal species for inhibiting methane production in Swedish cows.
Methane is produced by methanogens in the rumen when they reduce
excessive amounts of H2 and CO2 from fermentation. Recent research have shown that an exotic macroalgal species, Asparagopsis taxiformis, can be used as feed supplement to significantly reduce methane production in the rumen.
The decrease in methane emission is due to the impact of the secondary
metabolites in the algae on the microbiota in the rumen. Asparagopsis
taxiformis is a native species in Australia and the majority of research of its inhibitory effect has been performed there. They have observed in the laboratory that the production of methane was significantly decreased, by 84.7% compared to the control treatment, when the algae was included at 1% of the total organic matter concentration. At doses >2% of dietary organic matter there was a decrease by >99% compared with the control. The conclusion from these laboratory studies is that the effects on methane production by inclusion with A. taxiformis is dose dependent and that low doses, 1% of organic matter, could be enough to obtain desired result.