Abstract 348

Minson,-DJ; Bray,-RA

Division of Tropical Crops and Pastures, CSIRO, 306 Carmody Road, St. Lucia, Qld. 4067, Australia.

Australian-Journal-of-Experimental-Agriculture-and-Animal-Hu bandry. 1985, 25: 2, 306-310; 14 ref.

Voluntary intake and digestibility by sheep of 5 lines of Cenchrus ciliaris when grown as swards and cut at 5 different stages of growth were studied. Previous studies with C. ciliaris grown in small plots had shown large differences between lines in digestibility in vitro of plucked samples: high-digestibility line 1, 63.6%; medium-digestibility lines 9, 59.9%, and 14, 61.3%; and low-digestibility lines 17, 55.9% and 29, 55.7%. When those 5 lines were grown as swards and given to sheep, their mean DM digestibilities ranged from 60.3% for line 1 to 56.3% for line 29. There was a 0.95 correlation between the digestibility in vitro of the selections and the digestibility in vitro when grown as swards. Voluntary intake of line 1 was 9% higher than that of line 29; intake of digestible DM was 16% higher. Line 1 had the highest leaf and lowest lignin percentage.