Table 1 Herbage mass, morphological composition, forage allowance, and chemical composition of palisade grass pastures under fertilization with different doses of nitrogen. (Means of 3 years of evaluation, 4 evaluations per year, n = 36).

From: Effect of nitrogen application rate on yield, forage quality, and animal performance in a tropical pasture

Item

Treatment (kg N ha−1)

Effect

0

90

180

270

SEM

Herbage characteristics

Herbage mass (kg ha−1)

5798

6345

6436

6499

106

linear

Green leaves (g kg−1)

444.3

422.0

362.3

354.9

13.91

linear

Stem + sheath (g kg−1)

320.1

338.5

392.8

392.8

15.02

quadratic

Dead material (g kg−1)

235.6

239.7

244.8

252.3

12.23

ns

Herbage allowance (kg DM kg BW)

3.89

3.05

2.55

2.23

0.135

linear

Leaf allowance (kg DM kg BW)

1.78

1.29

0.95

0.79

0.094

linear

Chemical composition

OM (g kg−1 DM)

916.1

918.4

919.0

916.5

1.03

ns

CP (g kg−1 DM)

113.6

135.5

150.9

167.6

5.41

linear

NDF (g kg−1 DM)

606.2

585.7

564.0

559.2

5.82

linear

ADF (g kg−1 DM)

298.1

287.3

278.7

276.2

4.05

quadratic

Lignin (g kg−1 DM)

39.5

35.6

38.5

37.7

1.03

ns

Ash (g kg−1 DM)

83.9

81.6

81.0

83.5

0.92

ns

DE (g kg−1 DM)

584.1

569.2

565.9

560.8

2.31

ns

  1. Nitrogen (N), dry matter (DM), body weight (BW), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), dry matter digestibility (DE), standard error of mean (SEM). ANOVA significance (Herbage mass P = 0.002; green leaves P = 0.003; stem + sheath P < 0.001; dead material P = 0.2599; CP P < 0.001; herbage allowance P < 0.049; leaf allowance P = 0.031, OM P = 0.027, NDF P < 0.001; ADF P < 0.001; lignin P > 0.05; ash P > 0.05; DE P = 0.35).
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