Final report for OW24-001
Project Information
Enteric CH4 emissions are largely unknown from cattle grazing extensive rangelands with little to no understanding of the role vegetation communities play in driving these emissions. Determining forage-animal-emissions relationships would be beneficial for ranchers to understand if grazing plans oriented toward low-emission vegetation communities could mitigate CH4 emissions. Our question is “Can virtual fencing act as a tool for managing individual animal CH4 emissions?” Steers differing in natal origin will be provided by 1) local short-grass prairie stocker operations within the Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, Inc., 2) the USDA ARS Meat Animal Research Center (mixed-grass prairie in south-central Nebraska), and 3) the Rouse Beef Improvement Center (high-elevation mixed-grass prairie area in southeastern Wyoming). Steers will graze low- and high-productivity rangeland in Colorado (2024). Technology employed in this project includes Vence (Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey) virtual fencing to mediate animal distribution and GreenFeed (C-Lock, Inc. Rapid City, South Dakota) to measure individual animal emissions. Using a producer-created grazing plan, herd distribution mediated by virtual fencing will aim to match animal demand with forage availability with concomitant enteric emissions measured for individual steers. How grazing management decisions affect emissions will be assessed, and findings will be disseminated to animal agriculture stakeholders. We will engage with key industry stakeholders including producers, feedlot operators, and meat processors through engagement events and extension materials. Outcomes will be 1) CH4 emissions (grams/head/day) for steers grazing low- and high-productivity rangeland and 2) a determination of the utility of virtual fencing to aid emissions mitigation.
Research Objectives:
- Evaluate forage-animal-emissions relationships of stocker steers from different ranch origins grazing a common summer rangeland in the shortgrass steppe of Colorado using advanced technologies.
- Grow the resiliency of the beef cattle supply chain by improving collaboration between research institutions, government organizations, and producers.
Educational Objectives:
- Producers report changes in knowledge, attitudes, skills, and/or awareness of GHG emissions, technologies, and climate-smart practices as a result of their participation in the educational programming provided by this project.
Major events and milestones that will occur during this project can be summarized in 3 categories: 1) research trial, 2) outreach events, and 3) data analysis. From a research standpoint, a trial will take place during the 2024 grazing season. In this trial, stocker steers will undergo a 14-day acclimation period at each backgrounding location, beginning in November of 2023. Following the acclimation period and backgrounding GHG emissions and performance measurements, this trial will begin and last the remaining duration of the grazing season (approximately August-September). In addition to outreach, this project caters to a robust outreach and education program targeted at the agriculture industry. A producer-oriented field day will host the Weld County Livestock Association and is projected to occur in August of 2024 at the Central Plains Experimental Range Long-Term Agroecosystem Research site. An outreach event will also occur in June, where a presentation about the ongoing research at the USDA ARS CPER site will be given to the Colorado Cattleman’s Association at their annual meeting as well as the upcoming AgNext Research Summit (6/11/2025). The next outreach event will be the publishing of written materials on the AgNext Blog page following the end of the grazing season (e.g., winter 2024-2025). Finally, following the grazing season and the completion of data analysis, the findings from this project will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Data analysis is projected to occur in the fall 2024, following the completion of the grazing season.
Cooperators
- - Producer
- - Producer
Research
Project Site:
This study will be conducted at the USDA ARS CPER approximately 12 km northeast of Nunn, Colorado, USA (40°50′N, 104°43’W), which is a USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) site. Long-term mean annual precipitation is 340 mm, of which > 80% occurs during the growing season of April through September.
Objectives:
The overall research objective of this experiment is to determine forage-animal-emissions interrelationships of stocker steers grazing low- and high-productivity pastures in semi-arid rangeland. Steers will be: 1) selected for high growth – weaning and yearling weights – and carcass quality; these steers will be provided by the MARC in Clay Center, NE, and the CSU John E. Rouse Beef Improvement Center (JERBIC) in Saratoga, WY, and 2) selected (locally-adapted) to match the animal to the environment that optimizes production efficiencies rather than production output; these steers will be provided by the Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, Inc. Yearling steers (Red and Black Angus) will be grazed in 320-acre pastures with differing forage productivity (low: 600 pounds/acre vs high: 1,100 pounds/acre) with livestock gains previously demonstrated to be greater on the high productivity pastures (Reynolds, Derner et al. 2019).
This work is exploratory as forage-animal-emissions interrelationships of stocker cattle have
not been quantified in this ecosystem, nor have genetic/previous production setting influences on emissions been evaluated in extensive grazing lands. Prior efforts with yearling steers from these three providers have demonstrated an approximately 25% and 18% lower average daily gain with steers from MARC and JERBIC compared to local steers (Reynolds et al., in review). Unclear, however, is whether individual animal CH4 emissions differ with genetics/previous production setting and which yearlings will have lower emissions per unit of gain. We would hypothesize that all steers would have higher weight gains but lower individual animal CH4 emissions when grazing on the higher-productivity pasture compared to the lower productivity pasture. We also predict the consumption of forage items of high foliar quality, which is most common in low-productive pastures (Raynor et al., 2021), will underlie reduced CH4 emissions for steers raised locally, as these steers have been bred to optimize production efficiency over production output. Coupling Vence virtual fencing and GreenFeed emissions measurement technologies will allow the quantification of the forage items driving CH4 emissions per individual.
Research Design:
For this study, 120 steers with a starting weight in mid-May of 800 pounds, will graze in low and high productivity pastures. 24 steers (8 MARC steers, 8 JERBIC and 8 local steers) will graze low productivity pasture and 30 steers (10 MARC, 10 JEBRIC, and 10 local steers) will graze high productivity pasture in 2024. Each pasture type will be paired and will contain one GreenFeed automated head chamber system (C-Lock Inc., Rapid City, SD) equipped with CH4, carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen (H2) and oxygen sensors (O2), for measuring emissions. Four extra steers of each of the three previous production settings (MARC, JERBIC, local) will be available to substitute for steers not habituated to the GreenFeed automated head chamber system during the study. The GreenFeed will utilize alfalfa pellets as a bait feed, and systems will be calibrated weekly, and a CO2 recovery will occur monthly.
This project will be a 3x2 factorial design, allowing researchers to understand the effects of two independent variables, previous production setting and pasture productivity. The experimental unit will be the individual animal for all analyses. The experimental period will consist of a 14-day acclimation period to GreenFeed, a 7-day covariate gas analysis period to account for individual animal differences, and one 90-day experimental period (mid-May to August 2024). Preliminary data acquisition on the 1) Vence virtual fencing technology occurred in June-September 2023 and 2) GreenFeed systems occurred in June-July 2022 and May-July 2023 (Fig. 1b) as test runs of this equipment.
Based on the experimental design, treatments will be:
- High Forage Productivity, MARC Genetics
- High Forage Productivity, JERBIC Genetics
- High Forage Productivity, Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, Inc., Producer Genetics
- Low Forage Productivity, MARC Genetics
- Low Forage Productivity, JERBIC Genetics
- Low Forage Productivity, Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, Inc., Producer Genetics
Animals:
Yearling steers will be provided from three locations to allow for a production setting evaluation of CH4 production. Yearlings will be provided by USDA-MARC, CSU-JERBIC and Crow Livestock Cooperative, Inc., ranchers. Animal performance will be assessed using average daily gain, both across the full grazing season, for 28-day increments when cattle are individually weighed, and weekly with a walk-over-weigh scale positioned at each pasture water tank.
Emissions:
CH4 emissions will be recorded by the GreenFeed Automated Head Chamber System each time an animal visits the feeder for bait pellets. During a visit, air is sampled and analyzed for O2, CO2, H2, and CH4 concentrations by sensors housed within the Automated Head Chamber System. The sample concentrations are then compared with the gas concentrations in ambient air, measured before and after the visit. This difference in gas concentrations will allow for the animal’s emission to be calculated using ideal gas laws (Cottle et al., 2015). The Automated Head Chamber System will be programmed to dispense six allocations of bait at 30-second intervals when an animal is present (i.e., a visit). This programming will encourage the animal to stay at the Automated Head Chamber System while air samples are collected (Gunter and Bradford, 2017). Only measurements from animals sampled for longer than three minutes will be used, as this time length ensures enough eructations per sampling event – this minimizes variation in CH4 emission estimates (Velazco et al., 2016; Arthur et al., 2017; Huhtanen et al., 2019). Yearling steers will be limited to four visits to the Automated Head Chamber System per day to capture diurnal variation in emissions.
Virtual Fencing:
Each steer will be fitted with a Vence virtual fencing collar (Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey), which allows the producer to control the area an animal inhabits within a pasture via the HerdManager app. Each collar’s fit around the steer’s neck will be assessed weekly with re-fitting when necessary. Following methodology of Wesner et al. (2022) for collaring large herbivores, we will develop an index for accurately assessing Vence collar fit and concomitant animal welfare. This product will aid producers when employing this virtual fence technology to manage herd distribution.
To isolate the forage items/plant community underlying individual animal CH4 emissions, virtual fencing will be used to distribute steers to plant communities representative of the shortgrass steppe rangeland including swards dominated by blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), western wheatgrass (Pascopyrum smithii), various forb species, and fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens) (Raynor et al., 2021), for example. Ground-truthing of forage-animal interactions (i.e., forage item consumption) within the virtual fence boundary will be assessed once a week. This approach will allow the estimation of CH4 emissions per individual with a known forage diet.
Pasture Productivity Levels:
Forage samples will be collected bi-weekly from the low (dominated by the perennial C4 grass blue grama) and high (dominated by perennial C3 grasses western wheatgrass, and needle and thread, Hesperostipa comata) productivity pastures. Forage will be clipped to ground level inside 0.25 m2 quadrats (n = 20) at random locations in each pasture. Samples will then be weighed and dried (60°C) for 48 hours to determine forage dry matter for pasture productivity estimates. Samples will be composited by month and treatment and analyzed for crude protein, neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber, in vitro dry matter digestibility, NEm, NEg, and gross energy content at a commercial laboratory (DairyOne, Ithaca, NY).
Satellite Imagery:
Near-real time standing herbaceous biomass in each pasture will be determined from harmonized LandSat 8 and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery following the methods of Kearney et al. (2022). These values will be used to assess the temporal dynamics of forage biomass availability in each pasture across the grazing season. In addition, a 1 m2 resolution map of plant functional groups at CPER available through a collaboration of USDA ARS and NSF National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will allow determination of the forage being consumed by steers through overlaying and joining GPS collar locations and mapped plant functional groups using ARC GIS software (Redlands, California).
Analysis Methods:
Data will be analyzed using linear model procedures as a completely random design from R (R Core Team, 2023). Independent variables will include pasture productivity level (low vs. high) and previous production setting (MARC, JERBIC, local). Dependent variables of interest include average daily gain, daily CH4 emissions (g CH4/d), emission intensity (g CH4/kg gain), and CH4 yield (percent of gross energy intake lost as CH4). Additionally, a time-step analysis will be conducted to examine how changes in forage quality (using the field-obtained forage samples) and forage quantity (using both the field-obtained forage samples and the near-real-time standing biomass estimates from remote sensing) impact CH4 emissions with forage and CH4 data aggregated at monthly intervals, and yearling steer weight gains at weekly, 28-day, and season-long periods. Furthermore, forage-animal-emissions interrelationships will be identified daily through combining remote sensing-derived forage data, animal distribution provided through virtual fencing technology, and GHG emissions measurements.
Literature Cited
Arthur, P. F., I. M. Barchia, C. Weber, T. Bird-Gardiner, K. A. Donoghue, R. M. Herd, and R. S. Hegarty. 2017. Optimizing test procedures for estimating daily methane and carbon dioxide emissions in cattle using short-term breath measures1,2. J Anim Sci 95(2):645-656. doi: https://doi.org/10.2527/jas.2016.0700
Briske, D. D., S. R. Archer, E. Burchfield, W. Burnidge, J. D. Derner, H. Gosnell, J. Hatfield, C. E. Kazanski, M. Khalil, T. J. Lark, P. Nagler, O. Sala, N. F. Sayre, and K. R. Stackhouse-Lawson. 2023. Supplying ecosystem services on US rangelands. Nature Sustainability doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01194-6
Cottle, D. J., J. Velazco, R. S. Hegarty, and D. G. Mayer. 2015. Estimating daily methane production in individual cattle with irregular feed intake patterns from short-term methane emission measurements. Animal 9(12):1949-1957. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731115001676
Gosnell, H., K. Emard, and E. Hyde. 2021. Taking Stock of Social Sustainability and the U.S. Beef Industry. Sustainability 13(21):11860.
Gunter, S. A., and J. A. Bradford. 2017. Effect of bait delivery interval in an automated head-chamber system on respiration gas estimates when cattle are grazing rangeland. The Professional Animal Scientist 33(4):490-497. doi: https://doi.org/10.15232/pas.2016-01593
Hristov, A. N., J. Oh, J. L. Firkins, J. Dijkstra, E. Kebreab, G. Waghorn, H. P. Makkar, A. T. Adesogan, W. Yang, C. Lee, P. J. Gerber, B. Henderson, and J. M. Tricarico. 2013. Special topics--Mitigation of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from animal operations: I. A review of enteric methane mitigation options. J Anim Sci 91(11):5045-5069. doi: https://doi.org/10.2527/jas.2013-6583
Huhtanen, P., M. Ramin, and A. N. Hristov. 2019. Enteric methane emission can be reliably measured by the GreenFeed monitoring unit. Livest Sci 222:31-40. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2019.01.017
IPCC. 2021. Climate Change 2021 - the Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Panel on Climate Change.
Nisbet, E., R. Fisher, D. Lowry, J. France, G. Allen, S. Bakkaloglu, T. Broderick, M. Cain, M. Coleman, and J. Fernandez. 2020. Methane mitigation: methods to reduce emissions, on the path to the Paris agreement. Reviews of Geophysics 58(1):e2019RG000675.
Raynor, E. J., J. D. Derner, K. J. Soder, and D. J. Augustine. 2021. Noseband sensor validation and behavioural indicators for assessing beef cattle grazing on extensive pastures. Appl Anim Behav Sci 242:105402. doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105402
Reynolds, A. Q., J. D. Derner, L. A. Kuehn, J. D. Scasta, R. M. Enns, S. I. Paisley, and D. J. Augustine. in review. Does origin of yearling steers influence weight gain when grazing on shortgrass steppe? .
Rotz, C. A., S. Asem-Hiablie, S. Place, and G. Thoma. 2019. Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States. Agricultural Systems 169:1-13. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.11.005
Thompson, L. R., and J. E. Rowntree. 2020. Methane sources, quantification, and mitigation in grazing beef systems. Applied Animal Science 36(4):556-573. doi: https://doi.org/10.15232/aas.2019-01951
Velazco, J., D. Mayer, S. Zimmerman, and R. Hegarty. 2016. Use of short-term breath measures to estimate daily methane production by cattle. Animal 10(1):25-33. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731115001603
Wesner, Z. G., A. S. Norton, T. R. Obermoller, D. A. Osborn, and G. J. D'Angelo. 2022. Evaluation of expandable global positioning system collars for white-tailed deer fawns. Wildlife Society Bulletin 46(4):e1355. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.1355
Growth performance, enteric emissions and gas flux, and movement behavior of yearling steers target grazing with virtual fence management, cool-season and warm-season grass-dominated shortgrass steppe pastures were evaluated in a drought year (2024). One hundred twenty yearling British-breed stocker steers (~12 months of age; BW 382 kg ± 35) were used for target grazing. Over the 110-d grazing season (mid-May to early September), steers were grazed with virtual fencing management (active collars) or free-range (non-active collars). Automated head chamber systems (AHCS) assessed the gas flux of steers while GPS collars record movement and govern distribution if activated. Results indicated that grazing cool-season grass-dominated pasture via VF management can reduce enteric emissions (p < 0.001), but at the cost of growth performance compared to control animals (p = 0.0004). In contrast, grazing animals in warm-season grass-dominated pasture with VF management increased enteric emissions (p = 0.002) but did not lower growth performance compared to control animals (p > 0.05). A clear benefit of grazing cool-season grass pasture with VF is that one can lower enteric emissions through focused consumption of cool-season forage. Similar measurements in non-drought conditions are expected to reveal positive outcomes for both growth performance and enteric emissions of VF-managed steers in cool-season pasture, as the availability of forage will not impact growth performance. In addition, grazing warm-season pasture with VF-management under normal conditions may not show increased enteric emissions if some cool-season grass is available to lower emissions within virtual boundaries. These findings suggest that employment of virtual fencing technology, combined with an understanding of plant phenology, precipitation variability, and forage-enteric emission relationships, can optimize animal performance and enteric emissions management in adaptive targeted grazing management within this agroecosystem.
Research Outcomes
This project evaluated the efficacy of employing virtual fencing (VF) and enteric emissions measurement technologies to develop sustainable grazing strategies. A total of four pastures were selected for this research as they support sizeable cool-season grass communities that were expected to reduce enteric CH4 emissions because more digestible and high-quality cool-season grass consumption can lower CH4 emissions than the use of warm-season grass (Archimède et al. 2011). One pasture-pair (i.e., VF managed vs. control) was associated with Salt Flat ecological site (USDA 2007a) that is dominated by warm-season perennial short grass/bunchgrass (blue grama and inland saltgrass) and a subdominant layer of cool-season perennial grass (needle-and-thread), while the other pasture-pair was associated with Sandy Plains ecological site (USDA 2007b) and was dominated by cool-season perennial grasses (western wheatgrass and needle-and-thread) combined with an understory of warm-season shortgrasses (Blue grama and buffalograss). The precipitation in the 2024 grazing season was classified as moderate drought, with the site receiving 71% of the average April-August rainfall, resulting in 17% less and 9% more forage production than the 12-yr (2013-2024) site average in Sandy Plains and Salt Flat ecological sites, respectively. The reduction in forage in the cool-season grass-dominated pasture (Sandy Plains: western wheatgrass, needle-and-thread) was expected, as this plant community does not have the warm-season grass component that livestock can rely on under drought.
In contrast, in Salt Flat-dominated pasture, the cool-season grass component was available to VF-managed steers in only the first month of the grazing season, but substantial warm-season grass availability (inland saltgrass, blue grama) was present for the remainder of the season. Therefore, our expectation of managing VF boundaries to encapsulate high-quality forage items that lower steer enteric emissions had mixed outcomes. In cool-season grass-dominated pasture associated with Sandy Plains ecological site, enteric CH4 emissions of stocker steers managed with VF were 15% less than those of steers not managed with VF (control) at the cost of 12% daily growth than control steers. In warm-season grass-dominated pasture associated with Salt Flat ecological site, steer CH4 emissions under VF management were 15% greater than control steers, while average daily gain was similar to control steer emissions (0.67 ± 0.02 vs. 0.69 ± 0.03; p = 0.61). This ecological site-specific outcome suggests that if a manager has adequate cool-season grass availability in Sandy Plains ecological site-associated pasture, stocker steer distribution focused via VF management on cool-season grass communities will likely result in lower CH4 emissions and similar growth performance as steers not solely focused on grazing cool-season grass communities. On the other hand, in the Salt Flat ecological site, if a manager can govern distribution with VF that can encapsulate adequate cool-season grass availability within a pasture dominated by warm-season grasses, VF-managed steers may 1) produce less CH4 emissions, as some level of cool-season grass consumption should hamper CH4 synthesis and 2) may experience similar growth performance as steers not managed with VF. This new knowledge should contribute to future sustainability as our findings can help inform the development of carbon-neutral management strategies for use on western US extensive rangelands.
References
Archimède H, Eugène M, Magdeleine CM, Boval M, Martin C, Morgavi D, Lecomte P, Doreau M. 2011. Comparison of methane production between C3 and C4 grasses and legumes. Animal feed science and technology 166:59-64.
USDA. 2007a. Ecological site description for Salt Flat (R067BY033CO). (4/30/2025 https://edit.jornada.nmsu.edu/catalogs/esd/067B/R067BY033CO)
---. 2007b. Ecological site description for Sandy Plains (R067BY024CO). (4/30/2025 https://edit.jornada.nmsu.edu/catalogs/esd/067B/R067BY024CO)
Education and Outreach
Participation Summary:
Educational Objectives: Producers report changes in knowledge, attitudes, skills, and/or awareness of GHG emissions, technologies, and climate-smart practices as a result of their participation in the educational programming provided by this project.
Specific educational objectives of 1) hosting a producer-oriented educational field day at the CPER to demonstrate the use of the GreenFeed system for obtaining individual grazing animal CH4 emissions and virtual fencing technology to mediate animal distribution without physical fencing, 2) presenting research results to industry stakeholders at the Colorado Cattlemen’s Annual Meeting and the annual AgNext Research Summit, 3) publishing blogs pertaining to this research project targeting ranchers and the general public, and 4) developing a CSU Extension-published factsheet with results for producers and industry stakeholders, and submitting one scientific journal article.
To date, all educational and outreach objectives have been completed, except for Obj. 4: "Publish a Peer-Reviewed Research Article", which is currently in review with co-authors before submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
Objective 1: "Host A Producer-Oriented Education Field Day" was completed on 6/21/24 at the USDA Agricultural Research Service Central Plains Experimental Range and Colorado State University Semiarid Grassland Research Center. A write-up on the AgNext website summarizes the event: AgNext Hosts Research on the Range.
Objective 2: "Present Research Findings" has been completed across in-person, in-print, and online platforms. In communicating our results, we have effectively engaged producers and other stakeholders at in-person events during the field season and winter. Additionally, research goals and findings have been presented online, https://agnext.colostate.edu/2024/06/06/summer-grazing-trials-2024/, and through conference proceedings at the 3rd Precision Livestock Farming Conference and the 2025 meeting of the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada, which will be published post-conference.
Product List for Final Report for OW24-001
|
P & P proposal objective |
Audience |
# of ind. |
Title |
Date |
Presenter |
Location |
Delivery |
|
Obj. 1: Host A Producer-Oriented Education Field Day |
Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, LLC Producers, USDA NRCS, USDA FS |
55 |
Research on the Range field day - Virtual Fence, Research
|
6/21/2024 |
Anna Shadbolt |
Nunn, CO |
In-person; AgNext Hosts Research on the Range |
|
Obj. 1: Host A Producer-Oriented Education Field Day |
Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, LLC Producers, USDA NRCS, USDA FS |
55 |
Research on the Range field day -Methane |
6/21/2024 |
Dr. Kim Stackhouse-Lawson |
Nunn, CO |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
General public |
30 |
Summer Grazing Trials: Utilizing Virtual Fence to Help Identify Opportunities to Reduce Enteric Methane Emissions on Rangelands |
6/6/2024 |
Anna Shadbolt, Dr. EJ Raynor, Dr. Kim Stackhouse-Lawson |
AgNext Website |
https://agnext.colostate.edu/2024/06/06/summer-grazing-trials-2024/ |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
Western SARE CAPS Summit |
60 |
Improving our ability to monitor enteric emissions across the supply chain |
10/1/2024 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
Salt Lake City, UT |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
Conscious Bay Research consultants |
10 |
Enhancing measurement, reporting, verification, and developing scalable solutions for enteric CH4 emissions in extensive production systems |
12/3/2024 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
Fort Collins, CO |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
AgNext/Colorado Cattlemen's Association Grazing Workshop |
20 |
AgNext Grazing Research Update – CH4 & virtual fencing |
1/7/2025 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
Denver, CO |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
CSU Ag. Exp. Station Research Center Conference |
75 |
AgNext Grazingland Research with Precision Livestock Technology: Enteric Emissions Measurements and Virtual Fencing |
1/14/2025 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
Fort Collins, CO |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
Society for Range Management Annual Meeting |
55 |
Managing CH4 emissions with Virtual fence |
2/10/2025 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
Spokane, WA |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
Western Colorado University’s Center for Public Lands Virtual Fence Forum |
15 |
Presentation and Panel Participant on Virtual Fence |
3/28/2025 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
|
Virtual |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
CCA|AgNext Grazing Workshop @ CSU Spur Campus |
21 |
AgNext Grazing Research Overview – CH4, Virtual fencing, and Grazing principals |
3/26/2025 |
Anna Shadbolt, Dr. EJ Raynor |
Denver, CO |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
AgNext Industry Innovation Working Group |
30 |
Project Summary/Introduction |
Fall 2024 |
Dr. Kim Stackhouse-Lawson |
Fort Collins, CO |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
3rd US Precision Livestock Farming Conference |
tba |
Incorporating precision management technologies to reduce enteric emissions on rangelands |
6/4/2025 |
Dr. EJ Raynor |
Lincoln, NE |
In-person |
|
Obj. 2: Present Research Findings |
Animal Nutrition Association of Canada |
150 |
Greenhouse gas emissions from beef production systems |
5/9/2025 |
Dr. Kim Stackhouse-Lawson |
Niagara Falls, ON |
In-person |
|
Obj. 3: Develop Educational Resources |
Virtual fencing collar fit guide - CSU Extension-Agriculture series |
|
Collar adjustments when using virtual fence to manage yearling steer distribution |
May 2025 |
Anna Shadbolt, Dr. EJ Raynor, Dr. Kim Stackhouse-Lawson |
Online |
Fact Sheet |
|
Obj. 4: Publish a Peer-Reviewed Research Article |
Frontiers in Veterinary Science |
Open access |
Incorporating precision management technologies to reduce beef cattle enteric CH4 emissions on rangelands |
To Be Submitted 28 May 2025 |
E. J. Raynor, A. M. Shadbolt, M. K. Johnston, S. E. Place, D. J. Augustine, J.D. Derner, J. P. Ritten, N. D. Delay, J. de J. Vargas, K. R. Stackhouse-Lawson |
Online |
Journal Article |
Objective 3: "Develop Educational Resources" is in progress, with completion of one Colorado State University Extension factsheet, "Collar adjustments when using virtual fence to manage yearling steer distribution," and a blog accompanied by an informative video about the utility of Virtual Fencing lead by co-PI, Anna Shadbolt.
Western-SARE-survey 1 from Field Day at Central Plains Experimental Range
Education and Outreach Outcomes
Recommendations based on project outreach activities include producers and federal agency personnel highlighting the need for exemplary Grazing Plans to accompany any educational materials related to grazing animal distribution and performance in extensive production systems.
Producers reported that the materials shared at events enhanced their awareness of opportunities for managing cattle with virtual fencing and their overall knowledge of sustainability efforts in animal agriculture.