Can anyone provide information about Napier Grass Nutrient Content? What is the Experimental method of Napier Grass Nutrient Content?

Here I am telling you about Napier Grass Nutrient Content for your reference with information about its Experimental Method:

Napier Grass Nutrient Content Experimental Method
The digestion trial, carried out at Gainesville, Fla., was conducted according to the method outlined by Forbes and Grindley {S). The Napier grass consisted of the leaves with the tender-growth tips plucked by hand twice daily in a manner to simulate grazing, from plots representing the growth of the preceding 4 weeks, the plots
having been harvested in the same manner at that time. This freshly cut Napier grass constituted the entire nutrient intake of four mature Jersey steers for 4 consecutive 5-day experimental periods, following a 10-day preliminary feeding period. The feces were collected manually and stored in galvanized-iron cans. Samples were taken
daily for dry-matter analyses and in triplicate for nitrogen determinations on the fresh material. Dry-matter samples were composited by 5-day periods for proximate analyses.

In separate investigations at the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station by Blaser, Kirk, and Arnold to evaluate Napier grass under rotational grazing with beef and dairy cattle, samples were plucked at regular intervals from protected quadrats in a manner to simulate grazing in the remainder of the field. These quadrats were moved at regular intervals. The harvested material was used to represent the composition of the grass as grazed. Proximate analyses were made by methods of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (i). Calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus were determined by the method of Morris, Nelson, and Palmer {5),
RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS
The composition of the Napier grass as used in the digestion trials, and from the separate grazing tests conducted by Blaser, Kirk, and Arnold for a 2-year period, are presented in table 2. The ranges among samples used to compute the average composition were:
Dry matter 16.5 to 24.0 percent, crude protein 9.9 to 17.5 percent, crude fiber 26.5 to 33.6 percent, crude fat 2.4 to 4.5 percent, and ash 6.0 to 8.4 percent. The ash content is less than half that of the values given in table 1. The average content of calcium, of magnesium, and of phosphorus were respectively, 0.50, 0.18, and 0.35 percent.
The dry matter and protein content of the leaves is higher than reported by Wilsie, Akamine, and Takahashi (10), Paterson (^, 9), or Harrison (4)y indicating that the materials are not altogether comparable.

Each of the four steers consumed approximately 15.5 pounds of dry matter daily, or about 75 pounds of fresh grass, which was sufficient to maintain their weight or to cause slight gains. The daily feed intake and fecal output of the steers were quite uniform throughout the trial. The average digestion coeíñcients for the respective
steers are presented in table 2.

The values for digestible nutrient content presented in table 2 were found by applying the digestion coefficients to the analyses in the same table. The fresh grass, having a dry matter content of 21.4 percent, averaged 1.8 percent digestible crude protein and 14.0 percent total digestible nutrients, or 8.5 and 65.7 percent respectively on a moisture-free basis.




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