Theme 09: Forage Quality

Description

Digitaria eriantha is a South African perennial grass, C4 type, that grows during spring and summer with rainfalls higher than 400mm. The aim of this paper was to evaluate its nutritional quality profile: Crude Protein (%CP), True Protein (%TP), Soluble Protein (%SP), Non-Protein Nitrogen (%NPN), Neutral Detergent Fiber (%NDF) and Acid Detergent Fiber (%ADF) in cumulative production cuttings during a species cycle. In-sacco technique was applied to estimate the degradability of dry matter (DM). A simple regression statistics method was applied to relate different nutritional parameters. Digitaria eriantha presents low percentage of CP from flowering and of NPN during its whole cycle. TP represents more than 40% of CP. The estimated effective degradability is lower than the determined with in-sacco technique and it is related to the increase of NDF and ADF and with decrease of the TP as cycle progresses.

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Nutritional Quality of Digitaria eriantha Steudel. Subsp. Eriantha cv. Irene

Digitaria eriantha is a South African perennial grass, C4 type, that grows during spring and summer with rainfalls higher than 400mm. The aim of this paper was to evaluate its nutritional quality profile: Crude Protein (%CP), True Protein (%TP), Soluble Protein (%SP), Non-Protein Nitrogen (%NPN), Neutral Detergent Fiber (%NDF) and Acid Detergent Fiber (%ADF) in cumulative production cuttings during a species cycle. In-sacco technique was applied to estimate the degradability of dry matter (DM). A simple regression statistics method was applied to relate different nutritional parameters. Digitaria eriantha presents low percentage of CP from flowering and of NPN during its whole cycle. TP represents more than 40% of CP. The estimated effective degradability is lower than the determined with in-sacco technique and it is related to the increase of NDF and ADF and with decrease of the TP as cycle progresses.