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Voluntary feed intake by sheep and digestibility of shaded Stenotaphrum secundatum and Pennisetum clandestinum herbage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

S. P. Samarakoon ,
H. M. Shelton  and
J. R. Wilson
S. P. Samarakoon
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka
H. M. Shelton
Affiliation:
Department of Agriculture, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4067, Australia
J. R. Wilson
Affiliation:
CSIRO Division of Tropical Crops and Pastures, St Lucia 4067, Australia
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Summary

The effects of shade (50% of ambient light transmission) on the quality of established swards of buffalo grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum) and kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum) were examined at Wollongbar Research Station, northern New South Wales. Sarlon cloth was used to shade plots of the two species, after cutting to 8 cm, from November 1985 to March 1986. Herbage was harvested from shaded and adjacent unshaded plots for chemical analyses and for feeding as dry chaff to penned sheep at the University of Queensland research farm at Mt Cotton.

Shade markedly decreased the voluntary feed intake (VI) of P. dandestinum by 30·7% over the two harvests while VI of S. secundatum was not significantly affected. Shade had no effect on the in vitro and in vivo digestibility of P. clandestinum herbage but marginally increased that of S. secundatum. These shade effects resulted in a 14·2% increase for S. secundatum and a 34% decrease for P. clandestinum in the intake of digestible dry matter of shaded compared with unshaded herbage.

The reduced VI of the shade-grown herbage of P. clandestinum was associated with a higher proportion of stem (21 v. 8% for unshaded herbage), a lower proportion of leaf (48 v. 54%), and a lower concentration of total nonstructural carbohydrates (TNC) (0.9 v. 2.1%). In S. secundatum, there were similar, but smaller, changes in proportion of stem and TNC percentage in shade-grown herbage but, in contrast to P. clandestinum, these potential detriments to VI were offset by an increase in proportion of leaf and a decrease in the proportion of dead material. Average moisture content of shaded herbage (76%) was higher than that of unshaded herbage (70%). Nitrogen and potassium concentrations in plant tissue were higher in the shaded herbage.

The higher yielding capacity and maintenance of nutritive quality of shaded S. secundatum compared with shaded P. clandestinum indicates the potential usefulness of S. secundatum for plantation agriculture.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 114 , Issue 2 , April 1990 , pp. 143 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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