Prediction of the digestibility of forages by treatment of their cell walls with cellulolytic enzymes

✍ Scribed by Roy D. Hartley; Edwin C. Jones; John S. Fenlon

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 400 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5142
• DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.2740250810

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

A method is described for the prediction of the in vivo digestibility (d.m.d.) and in vivo cell wall digestibility of grasses: it involves incubating grass cell walls with a commercial cellulase for 16 h and measuring the optical density of the filtrate at 324 nm (O.D.). The prediction equation is based on a highly significant correlation (r = 0.978) between O.D. and d.m.d. using a total of 27 samples of three species of grass with d.m.d. between 60 and 83. The method could not be used for the prediction of d.m.d. of red clover and sainfoin due to their filtrates having low O.D. values. A second method for the prediction of d.m.d. of grasses is also described and is based on a highly significant correlation between d.m.d. and the percentage of cell walls digested by cellulase (r = 0.962): similar comparisons for the legumes gave lower correlation coefficients. Using either the O.D. or gravimetric method, inclusion of cell wall content in the regression equations reduced the S.D. of d.m.d. predictions.