Genetic effects of heat stress on milk yield and MIR predicted methane emissions of Holstein cows

Dairy cows both contribute to and are affected by climate change. Breeding for heat tolerance and reduced methane (CH4) emissions is a key requirement to mitigate interactions between dairy cows and climate change. This study was aimed to estimate genetic variation of milk yield and CH4 emissions over the whole trajectory of temperature humidity index (THI) using a reaction norm approach. A total of 257,635 milk test-day (TD) records and milk mid-infrared (MIR) spectra from 51,782 Holstein cows were used. Data were collected between January 2007 and December 2010 in 983 herds by the Walloon Breeding Association (Ciney, Belgium). The calibration equation developed by Vanlierde et al. (Abstract submitted to EAAP 2013; R² of cross-validation=0.70) was applied on the spectral data in order to predict CH4 emissions values (g CH4/d). These values were divided by fat and protein corrected milk yield (FPCM) defining a new CH4 trait (g CH4/kg of FPCM). Daily THI values were calculated using the mean of daily values of dry bulb temperature and relative humidity from meteorological data. Mean daily THI of the previous 3 days before each TD record was used as the THI of reference for that TD. Bivariate (milk yield and a CH4 trait) random regression TD mixed models with random linear regressions on THI values were used. Estimated average daily heritability for milk yield was 0.17 and decreased slightly at extreme THI values. However, heritabilities of MIR CH4 traits increased as THI values increase: from 0.10 (THI=28) to 0.14 (THI=75) for MIR CH4 (g/d) and from 0.14 (THI=28) to 0.21 (THI=75) for MIR CH4 (g/kg of FCPM). Genetic correlations between milk yield and MIR CH4 (g/d) ranged from -0.09 (THI=28) to -0.12 (THI=75) and those between milk yield and MIR CH4 (g/kg of FPCM) from -0.75 (THI=28) to -0.71 (THI=75). These results showed that milk production and CH4 emissions of dairy cows seemed to be influenced by THI.