Dipti Pitta, an assistant professor in ruminant nutrition at the School of Veterinary Medicine New Bolton Center, has received a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant of $500,000 for her research on the rumen, the large part of the cow’s first digestive chamber, or reticulorumen.

The grant funds three years of research during which Dr. Pitta hopes to better understand microbial associations in the rumen that are essential for methane mitigation. Methane makes up 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Livestock, mostly cattle raised for dairy and beef products, produce 25 percent of methane emissions in the United States.

Dr. Pitta will study how methane inhibitors function in cows that naturally produce excessive amounts of methane, as well as in cows that naturally produce lower amounts. Microbes in the rumen assist in the cows’ digestive process by breaking down plant material, but, in the process, some microbes release hydrogen as a by-product. Methanogens, a type of microbe in the group known as archaea that are present in the rumen, consume this hydrogen to ensure that it doesn’t build up excessively in the cow’s gut. However, methanogens turn hydrogen into harmful methane, which the cows must emit.