Nguyen, H.T.D.; Schonewille, J.T.; Pellikaan, W.F.; Nguyen, T.X.; Hendriks, W.H. In Vitro Gas Production of Common Southeast Asian Grasses in Response to Variable Regrowth Periods in Vietnam. Fermentation 2024, 10, 280, doi:10.3390/fermentation10060280.
Nguyen, H.T.D.; Schonewille, J.T.; Pellikaan, W.F.; Nguyen, T.X.; Hendriks, W.H. In Vitro Gas Production of Common Southeast Asian Grasses in Response to Variable Regrowth Periods in Vietnam. Fermentation 2024, 10, 280, doi:10.3390/fermentation10060280.
Nguyen, H.T.D.; Schonewille, J.T.; Pellikaan, W.F.; Nguyen, T.X.; Hendriks, W.H. In Vitro Gas Production of Common Southeast Asian Grasses in Response to Variable Regrowth Periods in Vietnam. Fermentation 2024, 10, 280, doi:10.3390/fermentation10060280.
Nguyen, H.T.D.; Schonewille, J.T.; Pellikaan, W.F.; Nguyen, T.X.; Hendriks, W.H. In Vitro Gas Production of Common Southeast Asian Grasses in Response to Variable Regrowth Periods in Vietnam. Fermentation 2024, 10, 280, doi:10.3390/fermentation10060280.
Abstract
The relationship between DM yield/cutting and fermentable organic matter (FOM) content of tropical grasses was appropriately investigated to re-access optimal grass maturity to feed dairy cattle. Nine different grass species belonging to the genera: Brachiaria spp. (Mulato II, Ruzi), Panicum spp. (Guinea, Hamil, Mombasa, TD58), and Pennisetum spp. (King, Napier, VA06) were chemically analyzed and subjected to an in vitro gas production (IVGP) test. For 72 h, gas production (GP) was continuously recorded with fully automated equipment. A triphasic, nonlinear, regression procedure was applied to analyse GP profiles. Across all the grasses, it was found that the neutral detergent fiber (NDF) contents increased with increasing maturity of the grass while the CP contents decreased with increasing NDF contents. In all nine grasses, digestible organic matter (dOM) was significantly affected by the week of cutting but IVGP was similar between weeks of cutting in Ruzi, Hamil, Mombasa, and Napier grass. Except for Guinea grass, the lowest dOM values were found when the grasses were cut after ≥ 5 weeks of regrowth. Harvesting grass one or two weeks earlier than normal cutting time is a practically relevant intervention in in-creasing forage quality and productivity of dOM and fermentation potential.
Keywords
tropical grasses; ruminants; nutritive values; in vitro gas production; methane production; volatile fatty acids
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Zoology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.