‘Grass2Gas’ May Be Key to Sustainable Pennsylvania Dairy Farms, Study Suggests
Implementing novel management practices in dairy farming, one of the commonwealth’s major agricultural industries, could help alleviate a large source of both nutrient pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, according to a multidisciplinary team led by researchers at Penn State. Those practices include continuous cover — keeping fields covered with vegetation year-round — and anaerobic digestion — a microbial process that converts manure and plant organic matter, called biomass, into biogas — a combustible fuel consisting mostly of methane. To evaluate the effectiveness of these practices, which the team refers to as Grass2Gas when they are combined, the researchers conducted a study involving the simulation of a typical large Pennsylvania dairy farm. The team compared the environmental footprint of the farm employing different scenarios of Grass2Gas with that of a dairy farm under traditional management.