Reducing Methane Emission in Ewes with a Dietary Blend of EOs & Polyphenols
Decreasing the emission of enteric methane (CH4) by ruminants is crucial because it represents a significant contributor to global warming. Most Archaea bacteria that reside in the rumen produce CH4 by aerobic catabolism of carbohydrates, and the fermentation byproducts of other microbes in the rumen also contribute to methane production. Methane production in the rumen fulfills these animals’ basic physiological needs by maintaining the ruminal environment’s redox potential (Moss, 2002).
The fermentation of the organic matter of feed is responsible for about 90% of the CH4 produced in the rumen (Murray et al., 1976), and Archaea reduce CO2 to CH4 using electrons derived from hydrogen (Hook et al., 2010; Nolan et al., 2010). This represents a loss of 6 to 10% of gross energy (Johnson and Johnson, 1995). It is also assumed that preventing this energy loss can increase feed efficiency and energy use while reducing production costs at the farm level (Hristov et al., 2013).
Many additives can decrease in vitro fermentation and mitigate CH4 production (Pirondini et al., 2012). Several in vitro and in vivo trials have quantified the CH4 emission potential of feeds and examined the effects of different bioactive compounds on ruminal fermentation and gas production (Asanuma et al., 1999; Eckard et al., 2010).
Some of these additives are hydrogen acceptors, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids and nitrates, which decrease the level of electrons needed for CO2 reduction (Lind et al., 2021). The mitigating effect of dietary lipids on CH4 production ranges from 12 to 38% when these lipids account for 3.5 to 7.0% of total dry matter, and this mitigation depends on the amount of fat, fatty acid composition, and composition of the basal diet (Lind et al. 2022; Patra, 2013; Martin et al., 2016).
A nitrate additive can decrease CH4 production by up to 30% (Feng et al., 2020; Lind et al., 2021), but its use is limited due to the risk of nitrite toxicity (Lee and Beauchemin, 2014). The investigation of natural compounds that can have an inhibitory effect on enteric CH4 production is critical, and a vast amount of literature exists on this topic, even if the results are often not univocal. Different classes of bioactive substances can modify metabolism in the rumen, such as polyphenols (Vasta et al., 2019) and essential oils (EOs) (Belanche et al., 2020). Polyphenols (s...
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