Enteric methane mitigation

Pure culture incubations using rumen methanogenic archaea allow insight into the direct effect of a test product on these microbial strains. Differentiation between the effect on hydrogenotrophic vs. methylotrophic methanogenic archaea is possible. Within the batch rumen simulation setup, specific (customized) in vitro conditions are developed to provide insights into the working mechanism as well as investigate the impact on the microbiome composition and the microbiome metabolic activity. The consecutive batch incubations allow a first assessment (before in vivo experiments) of the potential long-term effects and a detailed study of e.g. microbial adaptation, product breakdown, … . Furthermore, the methane mitigation effect of feedstuffs may partially originate from a shift towards post-ruminal digestion. As such, our combined simulation of rumen and post-ruminal digestion allows for this overall assessment.