STSM: Getting more acquainted with the GreenFeed system.

Dorien Van Wesemael – Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO), Melle, Belgium

My name is Dorien Van Wesemael, I am a PhD student at the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO), Melle, Belgium. My PhD-project is entitled: “Nutritional strategies towards a sustainable dairy farm: focus on methane and nitrogen-efficiency”. The aim of the project is to test different (feeding) strategies to reduce the methane emissions of dairy cattle.

In the first two years of my PhD several in vivo trials will be conducted to test the different strategies. One technique we use for measuring the methane emissions of cattle are individual open circuit chambers. In addition to these chambers we use two GreenFeed units. These automated concentrate feeders were installed in the free stall barn of ILVO in January 2015 and they register the CH₄ and CO₂ emissions when the cattle visits this feeder. As we want to translate scientific research output into practice, the GreenFeed system is a useful technique to assess the cattle’s gas emission in field conditions.

This Short Term Scientific Mission in the frame of METHAGENE COST Action FA1302 provided me with the opportunity to gain insights in the methane measuring trials carried out by Mohammad Ramin and his colleagues at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden, Umeå. This department has much experience and expertise in measuring methane emissions with the GreenFeed system. I stayed in Umeå for 5 days in March, 2016. At that time an experiment was running in the barn (SLU Röbäcksdalen) to test the effect of an industrial by-product on the methane emissions and the milk production of their Swedish Red dairy cattle.

The conducted practical work is on one hand related to the follow-up of the automated feed delivery system and on the other hand related to the follow-up of the GreenFeed system. I helped with the determination of the dry matter content of the different feed stuffs and we monitored the automated feed delivery system. Regarding the GreenFeed system a lot of cleaning is performed, because this is very important to generate reliable emission data. Another important element for getting reliable data are the calibration of the system and the CO₂ recovery test and this was performed also during my stay in Umeå. Because of my familiarity with the web interface of GreenFeed, I monitored the GreenFeed units in Belgium and regularly discussed the Belgian data, with the Swedish colleagues. This STSM was very important in gaining additional knowledge to conduct research experiments and to work with the GreenFeed system to measure CH₄ and CO₂ emissions from dairy cows.

I would like to thank all people from the department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden for their help and kindness during my short stay at Umeå, especially Pekka Huhtanen, for accepting my application and Mohammad Ramin, for his willingness to guide me through the experiment and their expertise with the GreenFeed system. And I thank the METHAGENE COST Action FA1302 for making this STSM (financially) possible.