Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T19:50:40.893Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An evaluation of the accuracy and precision of methane prediction equations for beef cattle fed high-forage and high-grain diets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2016

P. Escobar-Bahamondes
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), 5403 1st Avenue S, PO Box 3000, Lethbridge, Canada, AB T1J 4B1 Department of Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Science, 4-10J Agriculture/Forestry Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, AB T6G 2P5 Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA) Remehue, Osorno, Región de Los Lagos 5290000, Chile
M. Oba
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Science, 4-10J Agriculture/Forestry Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, AB T6G 2P5
K. A. Beauchemin*
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), 5403 1st Avenue S, PO Box 3000, Lethbridge, Canada, AB T1J 4B1
*
Get access

Abstract

The study determined the performance of equations to predict enteric methane (CH4) from beef cattle fed forage- and grain-based diets. Many equations are available to predict CH4 from beef cattle and the predictions vary substantially among equations. The aims were to (1) construct a database of CH4 emissions for beef cattle from published literature, and (2) identify the most precise and accurate extant CH4 prediction models for beef cattle fed diets varying in forage content. The database was comprised of treatment means of CH4 production from in vivo beef studies published from 2000 to 2015. Criteria to include data in the database were as follows: animal description, intakes, diet composition and CH4 production. In all, 54 published equations that predict CH4 production from diet composition were evaluated. Precision and accuracy of the equations were evaluated using the concordance correlation coefficient (rc), root mean square prediction error (RMSPE), model efficiency and analysis of errors. Equations were ranked using a combined index of the various statistical assessments based on principal component analysis. The final database contained 53 studies and 207 treatment means that were divided into two data sets: diets containing ⩾400 g/kg dry matter (DM) forage (n=116) and diets containing ⩽200 g/kg DM forage (n=42). Diets containing between ⩽400 and ⩾200 g/kg DM forage were not included in the analysis because of their limited numbers (n=6). Outliers, treatment means where feed was fed restrictively and diets with CH4 mitigation additives were omitted (n=43). Using the high-forage dataset the best-fit equations were the International Panel on Climate Change Tier 2 method, 3 equations for steers that considered gross energy intake (GEI) and body weight and an equation that considered dry matter intake and starch:neutral detergent fiber with rc ranging from 0.60 to 0.73 and RMSPE from 35.6 to 45.9 g/day. For the high-grain diets, the 5 best-fit equations considered intakes of metabolisable energy, cellulose, hemicellulose and fat, or for steers GEI and body weight, with rc ranging from 0.35 to 0.52 and RMSPE from 47.4 to 62.9 g/day. Ranking of extant CH4 prediction equations for their accuracy and precision differed with forage content of the diet. When used for cattle fed high-grain diets, extant CH4 prediction models were generally imprecise and lacked accuracy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium and Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alemu, AW, Dijkstra, J, Bannink, A, France, J and Kebreab, E 2011. Rumen stoichiometric models and their contribution and challenges in predicting enteric methane production. Animal Feed Science and Technology 166–167, 761778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bannink, A, van Schijndel, MW and Dijkstra, J 2011. A model of enteric fermentation in dairy cows to estimate methane emission for the Dutch National Inventory Report using the IPCC Tier 3 approach. Animal Feed Science and Technology 166–167, 603618.Google Scholar
Beauchemin, KA, McAllister, TA and McGinn, SM 2009. Dietary mitigation of enteric methane from cattle. CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources 4, 118.Google Scholar
Bibby, J and Toutenburg, T 1977. Prediction and improved estimation in linear models. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, UK.Google Scholar
Blaxter, KL and Clapperton, JL 1965. Prediction of the amount of methane produced by ruminants. British Journal of Nutrition 19, 511522.Google Scholar
Bratzler, JW and Forbes, EB 1940. The estimation of methane production by cattle. Journal of Nutrition 19, 611613.Google Scholar
Cottle, DJ, Nolan, JV and Wiedemann, SG 2011. Ruminant enteric methane mitigation: a review. Animal Production Science 51, 491514.Google Scholar
Ellis, J, Bannink, A, France, J, Kebreab, E and Dijkstra, J 2010. Evaluation of enteric methane prediction equations for dairy cows used in whole farm models. Global Change Biology 16, 32463256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, J, Kebreab, E, Odongo, NE, Beauchemin, KA, McGinn, SM, Nkrumah, JD, Moore, SS, Christopherson, R, Murdoch, GK, McBride, BW, Okine, EK and France, J 2009. Modeling methane production from beef cattle using linear and nonlinear approaches. Journal of Animal Science 87, 13341345.Google Scholar
Ellis, J, Kebreab, E, Odongo, NE, McBride, BW, Okine, EK and France, J 2007. Prediction of methane production from dairy and beef cattle. Journal of Dairy Science 90, 34563466.Google Scholar
Fernando, SC, Purvis, II HT, Najar, FZ, Sukharnikov, LO, Krehbiel, CR, Nagaraja, TG, Roe, BA and Desilva, U 2010. Rumen microbial population dynamics during adaptation to a high-grain diet. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 76, 74827490.Google Scholar
Gerber, PJ, Steinfeld, H, Henderson, B, Mottet, A, Opio, C, Dijkman, J, Falcucci, A and Tempio, G 2013. Tackling climate change through livestock – a global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Global Carbon Project 2013. Methane budget 2013. Retrieved on 29 January 2016 from http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/methanebudget/index.htm.Google Scholar
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006. Guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. In The National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ed. Eggleston, H, Buendia, L, Miwa, K, Ngara, T and Tanabe, K), pp. 10.110.87. IGES, Hayama, Japan.Google Scholar
Janssen, PH 2010. Influence of hydrogen on rumen methane formation and fermentation balances through microbial growth kinetics and fermentation thermodynamics. Animal Feed Science and Technology 160, 122.Google Scholar
Jentsch, W, Schweigel, M, Weissbach, F, Scholze, H, Pitroff, W and Dernol, M 2007. Methane production in cattle calculated by the nutrient composition of the diet. Archives of Animal Nutrition 61, 1019.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, KA and Johnson, DE 1995. Methane emissions from cattle. Journal of Animal Science 73, 24832492.Google Scholar
Kebreab, E, Clark, K and Wagner-Riddle, C 2006. Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from Canadian animal agriculture: a review. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 86, 135158.Google Scholar
Kebreab, E, Dijkstra, J, Bannink, A and France, J 2009. Recent advances in modeling nutrient utilization in ruminants. Journal of Animal Science 87 (suppl. 9), E111E122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kleinbaum, DG, Kupper, LL, Muller, KE and Nizam, A 1998. Applied regression analysis and other multivariate methods. Duxbury Press, Pacific Grove, CA, USA.Google Scholar
Lin, LI-K 1989. A concordance correlation coefficient to evaluate reproducibility. Biometrics 45, 255268.Google Scholar
Martin, C, Morgavi, DP and Doreau, M 2009. Methane mitigation in ruminants: from microbe to the farm scale. Animal 4, 351365.Google Scholar
McCann, J, Wickersham, TA and Loor, J 2014. High-throughput methods redefine the rumen microbiome and its relationship with nutrition and metabolism. Bioinformatics and Biology Insights 8, 109125.Google Scholar
Moraes, LE, Strathe, AB, Fadel, JG, Casper, DP and Kebreab, E 2014. Prediction of enteric methane emissions from cattle. Global Change Biology 20, 21402148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
National Research Council 2001. Nutrient requirements of dairy cattle, 7th revised edition. NRC, National Academies Press, Washington, DC, USA.Google Scholar
Ramin, M and Huhtanen, P 2013. Development of equations for predicting methane emissions from ruminants. Journal of Dairy Science 96, 24762493.Google Scholar
Ricci, P, Rooke, JA, Nevison, I and Waterhouse, A 2013. Methane emissions from beef and dairy cattle: quantifying the effect of physiological stage and diet characteristics. Journal of Animal Science 91, 53795389.Google Scholar
SAS 2015. JMP® 12 multivariate methods. SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.Google Scholar
Shibata, M and Terada, F 2010. Factors affecting methane production and mitigation in ruminants. Animal Science Journal 81, 210.Google Scholar
St-Pierre, NR 2003. Reassessment of biases in predicted nitrogen flows to the duodenum by NRC 2001. Journal of Dairy Science 86, 344350.Google Scholar
Tedeschi, LO 2006. Assessment of the adequacy of mathematical models. Agricultural Systems 89, 225247.Google Scholar
Yan, T, Porter, MG and Mayne, CS 2009. Prediction of methane emission from beef cattle using data measured in indirect open-circuit respiration calorimeters. Animal 3, 14551462.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Escobar-Bahamondes supplementary material

Tables and References

Download Escobar-Bahamondes supplementary material(File)
File 89.5 KB