Abstract 395

Hassan,-NI; Osman,-AF

Desert Inst., Mattareya, Cairo, Egypt.

World-Review-of-Animal-Production. 1984, 20: 3, 45-50; 28 ref.

In 23 cv. of Pennisetum purpureum from various tropical areas grown in Egypt the product of leaf length X leaf length showed the best correlation with stem thickness. Stem height was significantly related to leaf width, leaf:stem ratio and leaf length X leaf width. Multiple regressions gave higher correlations with the highest being between leaf length X leaf width and stem thickness. Stem height was the only single morphological character to show correlations with chemical composition and in vitro digestibility. It was positively correlated with acid detergent fibre and acid detergent lignin and negatively correlated with hemicellulose, in vitro digestibility and N-free extract. Crude fibre was inversely related and CP was positively related to N-free extract.