The alcohol in silage can drive significant ozone formation, exceeding the contribution from tailpipe emissions.

Livestock operations take a lot of flak for polluting. Manure lagoons not only irritate neighbors’ noses but also leak nitrogen — sometimes fostering dead zones up to 1,000 miles downstream. And ruminants can release copious amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas. Researchers are now linking ozone to livestock as well. But this time the pollution source is not what comes out the back end of an animal but what’s destined to go in the front.

State air-quality managers have been puzzling over why some rural areas suffer high ozone pollution. It’s been a real conundrum in California’s San Joaquin Valley, home to three of the nation’s six most ozone-ravaged counties.

Read more (Science news – Society for Science & the Public)