Mana Mushrooms

Delignification plays into the methane emissions reduction concept discussed elsewhere in my blog entries and site content with respect to reducing the human footprint through implementation of the Mana Mushrooms model.

So, I don't have the URL, but here's the content of the article, which I emailed myself... As a sort of test of the readers of this site, please feel free to email the link if you dig it up and I'll figure the html and move this to the links section.

Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

They have become the fashionable target for
environmentalists, but four-wheel-drive vehicles may
be less damaging to the environment than the cows and
sheep essential to the rural economy.

The methane emissions from both ends of cattle and
sheep are causing so much concern in government that
it has ordered researchers to find ways to cut down on
the emissions from livestock, which account for about
a quarter of the methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times
more powerful at driving global warming than carbon
dioxide – pumped into the atmosphere in Britain. Each
day every one of Britain’s 10 million cows pumps out
an estimated 100-200 litres of methane.

This is the equivalent of up to 4,000 grams of carbon
dioxide and compares with the 3,419g of carbon dioxide
pumped out by a Land Rover Freelander on an average
day’s drive of 33 miles.

With the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation predicting that methane emissions from
livestock could increase by as 60 per cent by 2030,
the issue is being treated with some urgency.

Scientists attempting to find new foods for cattle
have already exploded the myth that most bovine
emissions come from the rear. They have found the
majority come from belching.

Attempts to find a diet for cattle that will result in
less flatulence are being made by researchers as part
of a government-backed project.

A study in New Zealand suggested that the methane
output could be reduced by up to 50 per cent and
small-scale research in Britain has found that
“significant quantities” could be prevented from
getting into the atmosphere. A Department for
Enivonment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said:
“Recent research suggests that substantial methane
reductions could be achieved by changes to feed
regimes in farm animals.

“Improving the longevity of dairy cows may also result
in decreased methane production as a result of a
reduction in the total number of animals needed to
produce the same quantity of milk.”

He added that in the longer term the department was
also looking at the feasibility of reducing methane
from livestock by genetically engineering the
digestive system.

Sheep are now being sealed in polytunnels in field
experiments to find out if the results of laboratory
tests can be matched outdoors. They were chosen in
place of cows because they are ruminant but more
manageable for research. Mass spectrometers analyse
the air in the polytunnels before the sheep eat and
the fug afterwards when they have digested their food.

The key to reducing the methane from livestock is,
researchers believe, to make the diet of the cattle
and sheep more easily digestible.

Michael Abberton, of the Institute of Grassland and
Environmental Research in Aberystwyth, said rye grass
with a high sugar content, white clover and
bird’s-foot trefoil, a traditional meadow flower also
known as “bacon and eggs”, all show promise. “Contrary
to popular myth the methane comes mainly from belching
rather than from the other end,” he said yesterday.
“We know the diet of the animal does have an impact on
the methane emissions. There are a range of approaches
we can take.

“We are, for example, working on high-sugar rye
grasses which are designed to increase the
effectiveness of the processes in the animal’s gut.”

Particular effort is being put into investigating how
bird’s-foot trefoil can be made to grow more
abundantly in pastureland as the tannin it contains is
thought to be especially helpful in reducing
emissions.

The mechanisms within a ruminant’s stomach that
produce methane are not fully understood, but the
scientists believe that if they make the food more
digestible it will reduce the quantity of methane
produced by microbes in the gut.

High-sugar rye grass is already on the market, said Dr
Abberton, and has improved milk and meat yield from
cattle, but new strains of grass and clover are under
development to make them more digestible to reduce the
impact of livestock on climate change.

The team of scientists, funded by Defra, believe that
farmers will need to be shown additional advantages if
they are to be persuaded to go to the expense of
introducing new strains.

The £750,000 project, led by the University of Wales,
Aberystwyth, will run for three years and will also
consider how emissions of nitrogen, another greenhouse
gas, can be reduced in livestock. Agriculture accounts
for 37 per cent of methane and 67 per cent of nitrous
oxide emissions in Britain.