Analyses of Accumulation of Silica in the Growth of Two Tropical Forages using Simple Equations

The present study was conducted to suggest an equation to the analysis of forage dry matter digestion by in vitro incubation with rumen fluid and pepsin, and also to suggest an equation, using digestion rate, to the analysis of decreases in dry matter digestibility [DDMD] with growth of forages. Forage digestion characteristics were relative digestion rate of dry matter [RDRW], degradation rate of lignin [DRL] and dry matter digestion per unit degradation of lignin [DWDL]. This method was applied to two tropical forages to evaluate (1) RDRW using DRL, and DWDL, and (2) DDMD using RDRW. Accumulation of digestible materials and DDMD using accumulation rate with forage growth (Shimojo et al, 1998a, b, c, 1999) were also taken up and applied to the same tropical forages. Two different-type equations for DDMD suggested, roughly speaking, a sort of relationship between digestion characteristics of forage dry matter in ruminants and accumulation characteristics of digestible materials in forages