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Evaluation of pasture for beef cattle from measurements of cell wall in separated leaf and stem fractions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

K. W. Moir  and
J. P. Ebersohn
K. W. Moir
Affiliation:
Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Animal Research Institute, Yeerongpilly, Brisbane 4105, Australia
J. P. Ebersohn
Affiliation:
Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Animal Research Institute, Yeerongpilly, Brisbane 4105, Australia
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Summary

Three pastures, pangola–clover, setaria, and tropical grass–legume, were grazed for a 9-month period by 12 steers of initial live weight of 199 kg on each. For the first 5 months live-weight gains were, respectively, 1·2, 0·76 and 0·43 kg per day, mostly higher than could be expected for estimated dietary energy concentrations of 10·1, 8·9 and 8·7 MJ of metabolizable energy (ME) per kg of dry matter. The high live-weight gains were not explained satisfactorily by dry-matter intakes as measured from faeces voided and dietary digestible dry matter, but were possible if published values for the requirements of ME for growth and fattening were too high. Cell wall, in vitro digested cell wall and nitrogen in separated leaf and stem fractions were useful indices for evaluating pasture for grazing cattle, but they did not predict live-weight gain.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 100 , Issue 3 , June 1983 , pp. 513 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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