Lucy Chipondoro

Project Title: Investigating the effect of genetic merit and other animal traits on methane emissions from dairy cattle and sheep.

Overview: Lucy Chipondoro has a bachelors in Animal Production and Technology and a Masters in Animal Breeding and Genetics. She is an ERASMUS MUNDUS alumni for 2022 -2024 cohort. During her master’s thesis she worked on heritability of methane emissions in Swedish Red Cattle. This research sparked her interests in Greenhouse gas emissions and genetics in animal agriculture. She has started her PhD journey at Teagasc focusing on genetic merit and other animal traits on methane emissions from dairy cattle and sheep. Methane is an odourless, colourless gas which is produced by ruminant animals during process of feed digestion and has a severe impact on climate change. Enteric fermentation from ruminant species such as dairy and sheep has been identified as a major source of biogenic methane.  This project aims at reducing methane emissions from dairy and sheep through genetics. This is achieved through incorporating the carbon sub index in current sheep breeding program as well as including the genetic merit of animals in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models. This will increase the accuracy of methane prediction models. In addition, incorporating carbon in the breeding program will facilitate the selection of greenhouse gases along with other important traits. Genetic selection offers a cumulative, permanent and cost effective reduction of methane emissions

Programme Area: Livestock Systems

Supervisors: Jonathan Herron & Deirdre Purfield

Location: Moorepark

Funding Source: DAFM