Chemical and nutritive characteristics of whole crop silages of corn [Zea mays], rice [Oryza sativa], millet and sorghum
1990
Kondo, T. (Tohoku National Agricultural Experiment Station, Morioka (Japan)) | Ohshita, T. | Kyuma, T. | Nakui, T. | Masaki, S.
The objective of the present study was to investigate chemical and nutritive characteristics of whole crop silages produced from corn (Zea mays L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor Moench) and barnyard millet (Echinochloa crus-galli P. Beauv.) harvested at different growth stages. Principal components were calculated from the correlation matrix of crude protein, wither extracts, starch, acid detergent fiber (ADF) and aid detergent lignin (ADL) contents in the whole crop silages by principal component analysis, and then relationships between the principal components and nutritive values were statistically analyzed. The first principal component accounted for about 67% of the total variance in the five chemical components and represented variations in ether extracts, starch, ADF and ADL contents. The first principal component was negatively correlated with total digestible nutrients (TDN), but had no significant correlation with digestible crude protein (DCP). A significant difference among the crop species was observed in the relationship between the first principal component and TDN. The corn silages showed higher TDN values than the other crop silages with similar scores of the first principal component, indicating that corn silages had higher TDN compared with other crop silages having similar contents of ether extracts, starch, ADF and ADL. The second principal component, which accounted for about 23% of the total variance in the five chemical components, represented the variation in crude protein content. The second principal component was positively correlated with DCP, but had no significant correlation with TDN. There was no clear difference among the crops in the relationship between the second principal component and DCP
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