Enteric methane emissions from sheep on pearl millet pastures fertilized with different nitrogen doses

ACEVEDO DO AMARAL G.; GERE J. I.; BITENCOURT DE DAVID D.; SAVIAN J.V.; KOHMANN M.M; BAYER C.; GONDA H.; DE FACCIO CARVALHO P.

Dublin

Conferencia; Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture Conference; 2013

Global Research Aliance

The emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) from livestock is one of the main concerns in a global scale, because of the increasing world demand for food and mitigation of GHG emissions, simultaneously. Studies conducted in Europe concluded the use of nitrogen in pastures increases stocking rate and the soil emissions of N2O (nitrous oxide) and animal CH4 emissions per unit area as well. However, those emissions were compensated by the great atmospheric carbon influx into the soil, meaning these grazing lands can potentially mitigate the greenhouse effect (Soussana et al., 2007). Notwithstanding, this potential is very dependent on grazing management, and data on enteric methane emissions from animals grazing tropical pastures are very scarce. In this context, the hypothesis tested was that nitrogen fertilization causes less CH4 emissions per unit animal production providing higher levels of herbage allowance are available..