Abstract #M334

# M334
A comparative assessment of dried distillers grain, ionophore, bambermycin, saponin, and condensed tannin for methane emission abatement in beef cattle.
M. A. Fonseca*1, L. O. Tedeschi1, T. R. Callaway2, W. L. Crossland1, 1Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, 2USDA-ARS, College Station, TX.

The objectives of this study was to assess in vitro (IV) potential abatement of CH4 production rate of 4 commercially available products [ionophore (I), bambermycin (B), saponin (S), and condensed tannin (CT)] when fed in combination with dried distillers grain (DDG) on growing feedlot type diets. The IV gas production technique was used to determine the fermentability of 3 base diets with 3 levels of DDG (0, 20, and 40% DM). Diets contained alfalfa hay, ground corn, and Bermudagrass hay. The 15 diets (DDG0, DDG20, DDG40, I0, I20, I40, B0, B20, B40, S0, S20, S40, CT0, CT20, and CT40) were incubated in duplicates, 6 times each (15 × 2 x 6 × 2; n = 360 bottles), and the alfalfa hay was incubated alone in each run as standard. Blanks (n = 2 bottles/incubation time), containing rumen fluid and medium only, were used to adjust the CH4 production. Methane was computed as adjusted CH4 concentration divided by the amounts of NDF (CH4NDF, mM/g NDF), NFC (CH4NFC, mM/g NFC), fermentable carbohydrate (FCHO = sugar + starch + available NDF) (CH4FCHO, mM/g FCHO), OM (OM = 100 – Ash) (CH4OM, mM/g OM), and fermentable OM (FOM = OM – Ash) (CH4FOM, mM/g FOM). . The PROC MIXED of SAS (SAS Inst., Cary, NC) was used to analyze the CH4 data assuming a completed randomized design. Diets, products, and products within levels were assumed to be fixed factors and replicate within diet to be random. The convergence method was REML. Products affected CH4 production for total concentration (P = 0.0003), Adj CH4 (P < 0.0001), CH4NDF (P < 0.0001), CH4NFC (P < 0.0001), CH4FCHO (P < 0.0001), CH4FOM (P < 0.0001), and CH4OM (P < 0.0001). Ionophores had the greatest effect (P > 0.05) among all tested products to further decrease CH4 production, being the only significantly different from the DDG control diets. Levels (0, 20 and 40% DM) of DDG were not significant (P > 0.2076) in decreasing CH4 production. This is probably because the fat content in the diets were not high enough. Previous IV data from our laboratory had shown that responses in CH4 mitigation due to fat content in the diet was only significant when DDG levels were over 50% or 7.3% EE in the diet. These IV results suggested that ionophores have the potential to further decrease methane production from ruminants fed DDG based diet.

Key Words: greenhouse gas emissions, dried distillers grain (DDG), methane mitigation