AUTHOR=Oliveira Patrícia Perondi Anchão , Berndt Alexandre , Pedroso André de Faria , Alves Teresa Cristina , Lemes Amanda Prudêncio , Oliveira Bia Anchão , Pezzopane José Ricardo Macedo , Rodrigues Paulo Henrique Mazza 

TITLE=Greenhouse gas balance and mitigation of pasture-based dairy production systems in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest Biome

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Veterinary Science

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2022.958751

DOI=10.3389/fvets.2022.958751

ISSN=2297-1769

ABSTRACT=Brazilian cattle production is mostly carried out in pastures and the need to reduce the sector's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its environmental footprint has become a priority. The adoption of well-suited breeds and intensification of pasture-based livestock production systems are an alternative to optimize the sector's land usage. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of Holstein and Jersey-Holstein crossbred cows in different levels of pastures intensification (continuous grazing system with low stocking rate–CLS; irrigated rotational grazing system with high stocking rate–RHS) on the GHG mitigation. Twenty-four Holstein and 24 Jersey-Holstein crossbred dairy cows were used to evaluate the effect of two grazing systems on milk production and composition, soil GHG emissions, methane emission, soil carbon accumulation (0-100 cm). These variables were used to calculate the C-balance, GHG emission intensity, number of trees required to mitigate GHG emission and land-saving effect. The C-balance of all systems and genotypes presented a deficit in carbon; there was no difference for genotypes, but RHS was more deficient than CLS (-4.99 to CLS and -28.72 to RHS ton CO2e..ha-1.year-1). The deficit of C on GHG emission intensity was similar between genotypes and higher for RHS (-0.480 to RHS and -0.299 to CLS kg CO2e..kg FCPCmilk-1). Lower GHG removals (0.14 to CLS higher than 0.02 to RHS kg CO2e..kg FCPCmilk-1) had the greatest influence on the GHG emission intensity of milk production. The trees required to mitigate GHG emission was calculated, considering the C balance within the farm gate. The deficit number of trees to abatement emissions was higher to HO (-46.06 to HO and -38.37 trees/cow to JE x HO) and to RHS (-51.9 to RHS and -33.05 trees/cow to CLS). However, when the results are expressed per ton of FCmilk, there was a difference only for pasture management, requiring - 6.34 tree/ton FCmilk for the RHS and -3.99 tree/ton FCmilk for the CLS system. The pastures intensification resulted in higher milk production and land-saving effect of 2.7 ha for each ha of intensified pasture.