Low-methane forages project work package 2. Breeding grasses program 2024-2025
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Globally, ruminant livestock populations surpass one billion, relying largely on approximately 100 million hectares of Urochloa (syn. Brachiaria) and Megathyrsus (syn. Panicum) forages across tropical regions. These forages are vital to livestock production systems but are also responsible for more than 16% of total anthropogenic methane (CH₄) emissions (Mwendia et al., 2021). At CIAT, the Forage Breeding Program targets three main grass species—Megathyrsus maximus (guinea grass), Urochloa humidicola, and interspecific Urochloa hybrids (U. ruziziensis × U. brizantha × U. decumbens). Within the Low-Methane Forages (LMF) project, elite breeding lines are under evaluation for their potential to mitigate methane emissions, building upon previous selection for traits such as tolerance to acidic with low nutrient soils, resistance to spittlebugs (Homoptera: Cercopidae), high biomass production, and resilience under abiotic stress conditions. In this sense, the objectives of this study was find promising genotypes from the Urochloa and Megathyrsus breeding programs to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from livestock with high True Digested Dry Matter (TDDM), lower CH4 intensity (ml/g TDDM), and high biomass yield. Introduce traits (CH₄ intensity and TDDM) that will reduce enteric CH₄ production into widely used forage-grass cultivars through conventional breeding methods. Based on this premise, for 2024-2025 this study starts to evaluate 50 genotypes of Megathyrsus maximus grasses, 50 Urochloa humidicola and 50 of Urochloa interspecific hybrids.
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forage, feed grasses, greenhouse gas emissions, dry matter, mitigación, mitigation, forraje, enteric methane, calidad del alimento, breeding lines, metano entérico, ruminants, digestibility, rumiante, gramínea forrajera, feed quality, methane fermentation, emisión de metano, materia seca, digestión ruminal