Black cherry (Prunus serotina L.) leaves have been reported to be a cause of hydrocyanic acid poisoning of livestock. It has been widely accepted that cherry leaves must be wilted before they are toxic to cattle.
A study was conducted during the 1971 growing season at Bowling Green, Kentucky to determine the level of hydrocyanic acid potential (HCN‐p) in black cherry leaves and to ascertain the effect of wilting of leaves on HCN‐p.
Average HCN‐p of fresh leaves from six black cherry trees was highest (2472 ppm) in the spring and decreased rather consistently during the growing season. Average HCN‐p was high in fresh leaves and was intermediate and low in leaves air‐dried for 24 and 48 hours, respectively. A negative relationship was found between level of HCN‐p and dry matter percentage. There were no consistent differences among the six cherry trees for HCN‐p of leaves.
These results indicate that wilted leaves should be safer than fresh leaves for cattle consumption.
All Sorghum species are believed to have the potential of producing hydrocyanic acid, and thus, the common usage of Sorghum as a forage results in the threat of poisoning to cattle. Since the determination of hydrocyanic acid potential (HCN‐p) is laborious, we sought to ascertain whether it is possible to predict HCN‐p from other more easily measured plant characteristics.
The relationships of HCN‐p to various morphological plant characteristics and dry matter percentage of six sorghum types were studied in 1970 and 1971. Significant differences among the cultivars were found both years for all the plant characteristics—height, diameter of culm, length of stem, number of leaves, width and length of third leaf, dry matter percentage, and HCN‐p. Most of the correlation coefficients between HCN‐p and the morphological characteristics of the cultivars were not significant. Correlation coefficients between HCN‐p and dry matter percentage were all negative, and most were highly significant. It was not possible to predict HCN‐p from measurements of the morphological characters. Although dry matter percentages were influenced by genotype and stage of development, relative differences in dry matter percentages were indicative of relative differences in HCN‐p.
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