ARS | Publication request: MOLECULAR BASIS OF FORAGE QUALITY: CELL WALL STRUCTURAL FOUNDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIES

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: April 17, 1997
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: Forages play an important role in the world wide animal industry. The fiber (cell wall) portion makes up 30-80% of forage dry matter and represents a major source of nutritional energy for ruminants, but, unfortunately less than 50% of this fraction is readily digested and utilized by the animal. Significant progress has been made in the past 30-40 years towards understanding cell wall structure and function and developing mechanistic models that explain limitations to structural polysaccharide degradation and utilization by ruminants. In grasses it is now clear that wall bound ferulates play a key role in cross-linking xylans to each other and to lignin resulting in less degradable walls. Much has been accomplished in advancing our understanding of the lignification process in plants, particularly the genes and enzymes involved in the monolignol biosynthesis. The application of molecular techniques to this area has advanced our understanding of the metabolic process while providing tools for further exploration of wall structure and function and providing direction as to possible avenues to improve forage digestibility.