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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Kimberly, Idaho » Northwest Irrigation and Soils Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #113419
Title: NEAR INFRA-RED MEASUREMENT OF NONSTRUCTURAL CARBOHYDRATES IN ALFALFA HAY

Author
item Mayland, Henry
item Burns, Joseph
item Fisher, Dwight
item SHEWMAKER, G - UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

Submitted to: Grassland International Congress
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/24/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Recently documented benefits from afternoon versus morning cut forage have encouraged laboratory reporting of total nonstructural carbohydrate (TNC) values as part of forage quality testing. Our objective was to determine if infra-red spectroscopy (NIRS), which is being used in many forage testing labs, could be reliably used to quantify forage sugars in hay samples. We used two alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) sample populations that were analyzed by wet chemistry for sugars and scanned by NIRS. The first set consisted of field-dried hay samples that were oven dried at 70 degrees C and the second consisted of fresh, freeze-dried samples. TNC values were determined more precisely with NIRS than by wet chemistry.