The influence of herbage mass and growing temperature on the organic matter components of five temperate grasses under simulated grazing condition
1993
Kanno, T. (National Grassland Research Inst., Nishinasuno, Tochigi (Japan)) | Fukuyama, M. | Sato, S.
An experiment was conducted to study the influence of plant maturity and growing temperature on organic matter components of five temperate grasses under simulated grazing condition. Field plots of orchardgrass, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass. Kentucky bluegrass and prairie grass were cut seven or eight times annually over a four year period, and forage samples were taken to determine the percentage content of organic cellular content (OCC), organic cell wall (OCW), high digestion cell wall organic matter (Oa) and low digestion cell wall organic matter (Ob) a well as digestible organic matter (DOM). Maturity of the harvested samples w as expressed in terms of the amount of herbage mass (HM) higher than 5 cm above the ground, and the growing temperature (GT) was defined as the mean temperature during the regrowth period. The relation between the percentages of the various components and HM and/or GT was then examined for each species. There were significant positive correlations between HM and the percentage content of OCW and Ob in all the examined species except for tall fescue, and there were significant negative correlations between HM and the percentage content of OCC and DOM in three of the species. High GT caused the percentage content of Oa to decrease, and the percentage content of Ob to increase. A significant negative correlation was observed between GT and the percentage content of DOM in both perennial ryegrass and prairie grass. To estimate the effects of HM and GT on the percentage content of DOM, we performed a multiple regression analysis by using DOM as the dependent variable, and HM and GT as the independent variable. The results indicated that the percentage content of DOM declined at a rate of 0.024-0.026% per lg dry weight/centiare increase of HM
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