My friend (and a reader of this blog) Marek Kirs send me this link to a story on NPR about attempts to reduce the amount of methane produced by cows. The idea is to adjust the types of food they eat or even manipulate their gut microbial community to eliminate the methanogenic organisms responsible for the gas production.
One of the points the researchers make is that the production of methane is the result of incomplete oxidation of food eaten by the cows. So, the elimination of methanogenesis could result in increases production of meat and milk from these animals. Cattle food conversion ration are around 12%, and any increases would likely be small but the idea is to have enough of an increase to offset any increased cost to the producers.
3 comments:
There is actually at least three errors in the story you linked:
1.Massey Univesity has very little, if anything, to do with this project. They are located next door to us and people tend often lump us together. It is AgResearch Ltd project.
2. There is currently no getically engineered microbes involved, neither planned as i'm aware of.
3. Dr. Ron Ronimus name is misspelled as Reimus.
I hope you liked the background sounds :-)
I hope you liked the background sounds
Yes. What did they do, line up all of the postdocs and have them make those sounds as the piece was recorded?
So, the elimination of "methanogenesis" could result in increases production of meat and milk from these animals. I've been racking my brain trying to think of a good choice for all this matters above.
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