Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) is an underutilized forage legume in the Mountain West. It has several unique characteristics that make it worth considering, particularly for pasture. One of the key reasons to use birdsfoot trefoil is that it does not cause bloat when grazed as green, standing forage, even in pure stands. This is due to the presence of condensed tannins which bind with s...

The objective of this study was to determine the relationships between nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (P), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) contents of sainfoin (Onobrychis sativa Lam.) pasture and canopy reflectance. Canopy reflectance measurements were made by using a portable spectroradiometer. An experiment was conducted in the Turkey in May and June in ...

in order to evaluate the quantitative factors in fox tail millet (setaria italica l.) under three stages of growth, an experiment was conducted in birjand during spring and summer of 2010. the preliminary objective was evaluation of fox tail physiological characteristics on animals that feed them. planting of foxtail millet was performed according to local practices and endemic acknowledge. sam...

the chemical and fermentative parameters of three fresh forages and silages of sorghum including sweet, pegah and speedfeed varieties were compared with corn using in vitro method, also degradability coefficients of forages and silages were determined by in situ method. forages were planted in the same condition and harvested in soft dough stage, then ensilaged in four replicates for each time ...

The sorghum-sudangrass hybrid (Sorghum bicolor x S. sudanense) is an important forage crop. However, little is known about the genetic mechanisms related to forage yield and the 4 forage yield component traits in this forage crop. In this study, a linkage map was constructed with 124 assigned SSR markers using an F2 mapping population derived from the crossing of sorghum Tx623A and sudangrass S...

In the production of fermented feed, each crop can be contaminated with a variety of microorganisms that may produce natural pollutants. Biogenic amines, mycotoxins, and undesirable organic acids can decrease health feed safety. The aim of this study was to compare the counts of microorganisms, levels of biogenic amines, and the mycotoxins in forage legumes, and also to compare the occurrence o...

A model is presented that predicts pH and electrical conductivity (EC) changes in the root zone of lettuce (Lactuca sativa cv. Vivaldi) grown in a deep–trough hydroponic system. A feedforward neural network is the basis of that modeling. The neural network model has nine inputs (pH, EC, nutrient solution temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, light intensity, plant age, amount of adde...

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of diet and monensin on performance, digestibility, and methane production in steers fed forage-based diets. In Exp. 1, 72 individually fed steers (300 ± 25 kg) were used in a randomized block design arranged as 2 separate 2 × 2 factorials with two common treatments, thus 6 diets were fed with 12 steers per treatment. Factors included hig...

Potential competition between native and domestic herbivores is a major consideration influencing the management and conservation of native herbivores in rangeland ecosystems. In grasslands of the North American Great Plains, black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) are widely viewed as competitors with cattle but are also important for biodiversity conservation due to their role in cre...

The forage maturation hypothesis (FMH) proposes that ungulate migration is driven by selection for high forage quality. Because quality declines with plant maturation, but intake declines at low biomass, ungulates are predicted to select for intermediate forage biomass to maximize energy intake by following phenological gradients during the growing season. We tested the FMH in the Canadian Rock...