Gone with the wind

December 9th, 2011 | Oddballs

Sometimes when you read a story your first reaction is to check the calendar to see if it’s April Fools Day (or the Dia de los Inocentes if you live in Spain)!

Would you believe that it has, apparently, been proved that cattle produce less methane gas if you feed them on grape ‘marc’? When fed the stems, seeds and skins that were left over from making (red) wine, material known as the ‘marc’, methane emissions from the cows dropped by 20 per cent!

Holstein dairy cows were fed five kilograms of grape marc each day for more than a month during a study in Australia, while another group was fed conventional fodder. The impact of the different diets on the cows was then assessed as scientists measured methane emissions, milk production and milk composition.

The other benefit (apart from producing less gas), was that the cows’ milk production increased by 5 per cent, while the healthy fatty acids in their milk also rose.

For me at least, this now begs two important questions. Firstly, how and why did they decide to use the by-products of wine production for testing? And, secondly, how did they actually go about measuring the level of methane emissions?

I know that in the wine world there are conaisseurs among us who are described as having a ‘good nose’, but this job would obviously take it to a whole new level!

Sometimes when you read a story your first reaction is to check the calendar to see if it’s April Fools Day (or the Dia de los Inocentes if you live in Spain)!

Would you believe that it has, apparently, been proved that cattle produce less methane gas if you feed them on grape ‘marc’? When fed the stems, seeds and skins that were left over from making (red) wine, material known as the ‘marc’, methane emissions from the cows dropped by 20 per cent!

Holstein dairy cows were fed five kilograms of grape marc each day for more than a month during a study in Australia, while another group was fed conventional fodder. The impact of the different diets on the cows was then assessed as scientists measured methane emissions, milk production and milk composition.

The other benefit (apart from producing less gas), was that the cows’ milk production increased by 5 per cent, while the healthy fatty acids in their milk also rose.

For me at least, this now raises two important questions. Firstly, how and why did they decide to use the by-products of wine production for testing? And, secondly, how did they actually go about measuring the level of methane emissions?

I know that in the wine world there are conaisseurs among us who are described as having a ‘good nose’, but this job would obviously take it to a whole new level!

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