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title: "3.7.1 Application of measurements of methane in dairy cattle breeding (2025)"
canonical: "https://wiki.groenkennisnet.nl/space/TAB/282460236/3.7.1%20Application%20of%20measurements%20of%20methane%20in%20dairy%20cattle%20breeding%20(2025)"
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**3.7.1 Application of measurements of methane in dairy cattle breeding (2025)**

When starting measurements of new traits for breeding purposes, two parameters are important: the first is the repeatability and the second is the heritability of the traits. In a large scale Dutch trial with Holstein Friesian cows, using daily averages for methane produced, the repeatability was 0.34. This can be enhanced by using a larger number of measurements, e.g. by calculating weekly averages. For the weekly averages, the repeatability was 0.77 for the GreenFeed and 0.66 for the sniffer measurements. Estimates for the heritability of daily and for weekly averages were similar for the more accurate GreenFeed and the slightly less accurate Sniffer measurements, respectively 0.19-0.18 for daily and 0.33-0.32 for weekly averages. The genetic correlations between the GreenFeed and sniffer measurements for daily and weekly averages were high: 0.71 and 0.76 respectively. This implies that for breeding purposes the cheaper sniffers can be used and that would result in the same effect of selection as when measuring with GreenFeed units.

In the cattle breeding program of CRV, feed intake is measured of all females that are selection candidates as dams of sires. The measurement of methane emission with sniffers will be added to the recording scheme for these animals. In this way their methane emission becomes available in the large reference population used in the CRV genomic selection scheme. Genomic selection with the usual selection index where methane emission is added in the breeding goal, decreases the methane emission with 0.8 per cent per year. In this way the selection against methane emission can be realized without measuring methane emission in the whole milk recorded population.

Since 2025, the breeding value for methane emissions has been published for Holstein Friesians in The Netherlands. A breeding value of 100 means that a bull's offspring produce an average of 435 grams of methane per day. When a bull has a favorable breeding value of 104, this  is 417 grams per day.

![image](media://a408de39-e71c-4250-a52f-4b13c11d1af0)