Liquid_Green_Gas_Solution (LGGS)

On the occasion of “Milk the Future – Science” organized by Sugar Plus and held recently at the Tecnopolo of Reggio Emilia, the results of the first, complex experimental studies conducted at the Department of Veterinary Sciences in Bologna were presented with the aim of evaluating the anti-metanigenic action of some liquid feeds for feeding dairy

You spend years of your professional life traveling around conferences analyzing far and wide how the dairy cow should be raised, fed and cared for, and one step at a time you become convinced that, in our field, Italian university research can do little to compete with that of the “mythical” and super-funded American campuses. Then one day you go to a meeting on combating methane emissions and discover that when there is finally teamwork and the public collaborates with the private sector, our researchers manage to do egregious things. That’s the very personal lesson I took from the latest appointment with “Milk the Future“, the well-established outreach platform that Sugar Plus wanted to dedicate to the dairy supply chain, and whose 2024 edition took place a few weeks ago at the Tecnopolo of Reggio Emilia. “Milk the Future – Science“: this, actually, is the full name given to the event, which in fact provided two young doctoral students from the Department of Veterinary Sciences of the University of Bologna with the opportunity to present the results of a three-year cycle of scientific studies on the use in dairy cattle of some liquid feeds developed by Sugar Plus, and whose anti-metanigenic action was evaluated. A research project called “Liquid Green Gas Solution” and funded by the Emilia-Romagna Region by means of Psr 2014-2020 (measure 16.2.01).

In Reggio Emilia, it was Professor Andrea Formigoni, a point of reference for the young research team at the University of Bologna, who effectively framed the complexity of the issue under discussion. First concept: methane gas emission is innate to the ruminant animal, and is therefore an aspect that is “modulable, but not suppressible“. Next, it should be considered that cattle farming has an objectively modest weight on the world’s greenhouse gas production, and countries with advanced animal husbandry, where intensive type of farming is practiced, are less impactful than those where grazing practice prevails. However, it is still convenient for our researchers to deal with methane emissions, first because it is an opportunity to “refine the details” and thus make our production method – and in particular our way of feeding cattle – more efficient, and second because by studying methane we are actually dealing with other emissions as well, and in particular with nitrogen emissions, which in our Po Valley are the number one environmental problem. At the moment, in addition to the possibility of targeted genetic selection, there are multiple dietary and nutritional strategies identified to modulate methane emissions from dairy cattle, but the effects obtained are not always consistent results over time. This is the case with some additives, which are effective in the short term, but then incur an “adaptation” phase by the rumen. In the light of these premises,” Formigoni stressed, “the Liquid Green Gas Solution project wanted to focus on an innovative proposal, “with unexplored effects,” consisting of different mixes of natural additives (including organic acids, salts and tannin mixtures) incorporated within a liquid feed (“Red Met” by Sugar Plus).

Andrea Formigoni pointed out that it is always worth dealing with methane emissions, as they are spies of the level of business efficiency

But the other innovative aspect of the project concerns the methodologies used to measure (individual) methane emissions. In fact, as the two young doctoral students from the University of Bologna Francesca Ghiaccio and Riccardo Colleluori pointed out in Reggio Emilia, the “Liquid Green Gas Solution” project was divided into two phases, namely an initial set of “in vitro” experiments that later gave way to “in vivo” tests, conducted on cows raised at the Ozzano (Bo) teaching barn. And while the studies carried out in the laboratory were aimed at selecting the blends to be used in the field (more than 50 ingredients were tested, including nitrates), the barn trials were aimed at evaluating the anti-metanigenic effects under real conditions of three different experimental liquid feeds. Said so, it sounds very simple, but to measure the methane developed in test tubes from ruminal CSF taken by esophageal probe from cows fed either the experimental diet or the control diet, not only was sophisticated and expensive instrumentation, called the “Gas Endeavour System®“, used, but to derive reliable data, a sampling protocol had to be developed (which cows to take CSF from? Better before or after the main meal?), as well as a fermentation protocol (what volumes of CSF should be used? For how many times? What doses of additive should be used? And so on). Similarly, complex instrumentation was used for the in vivo tests – a “sniffer” installed on the automated milking stall, above the feed tray, connected by means of a tube to a measuring panel with sensors for methane and other parameters – but the researchers also had to determine, given the fact that methane emission is a continuous activity, taking place 24/7, which readings should be considered for statistical analysis among the thousands of available data. For this purpose, with the help of AI, researchers have developed a weekly reporting system.

For practical purposes, it is too early to say whether these studies will lead to a feed solution for use in the barn that is effective in cutting methane emissions, has a long-lasting effect and is commercially available. What is certain is that the Liquid Green Gas Solution project has paved the way for new, future experiments aimed at improving the feed efficiency and sustainability of our dairy farms.

“Research is made up of one step after another, and with each step we face new challenges and problems that we try to solve. To date, we are quite happy with what we have done and the results we have achieved, and we hope to build on it for the future. We trust, for those who are working in the same field, that we can confront each other especially on the issue of methods, as well as on the issue of practical-operational difficulties, because we believe that there is a real possibility in the future of enhancing lower methane production within the farms, but only when we are able to provide accurate and reliable measurement systems. Being able to measure parameters directly, animal by animal, will enable us to kick-start this in a meaningful way.

One of the biggest challenges encountered during this project was managing thousands and thousands of data to be traced back to a single individual to have a final result. This was extremely complex and completely unique; there is no similar script in any bibliography, nor available elsewhere. What resulted was a real artificial intelligence that allows us to have in a few minutes the results of a day or a month of 50, 100 , 1,000 cows that went through milking robots.

This is perhaps one of the most interesting results at the end of the project.

During the study, the use of the RED – MET additive was accompanied by a diet specially formulated to modulate fatty acid intake, and this led us to positive results. Indeed, we believe that the approach to be pursued is to understand what is the best combination of foods and nutrients, evaluated and studied as a whole, to achieve the best possible result in terms of reducing methane emissions.”

Prof. Andrea Formigoni

University of Bologna