Palatability to sheep of the Eragrostis curvula complex. 1. Methods of assessing palatability

Abstract

This paper evaluates a method of judging palatability to sheep of accessions of Eragrostu curvula. Scores of from 0 (not grazed) to 10 (completely grazed) are compared with measured herbage consumption and percentage consumption values on 5 occasions at Orange and on 3 occasions in each of 2 trials at Wagga Wagga, N.S.W. Allowing for differences in initial herbage availability, regressions of score ranks pooled over all assessments of the 3 trials explained 65, 62 and 66%, respectively, of the variation in leaf, stem and total herbage consumption ranks. Most of the variation in stem consumption, however, was due its availability rather than palatability. It was concluded that palatability could meaningfully be predicted from score ranks alone. Comparison of different observers' scores allocated after several grazings showed that observers were consistent in their ranking. The results demonstrate the usefulness and merits of the different methods of assessing palatability.

The leptin C73T missense mutation is not associated with marbling and fatness traits in a large gene mapping experiment in Australian cattle

“…Animals in Group 2 (CRC1) 6,8,14,15 were taken from an experiment originally designed to estimate genetic correlations between traits. Steer and heifer offspring of a sire, chosen as weaners (7–9 months of age), were allocated to several cohorts, each cohort assigned to an environmental or management group.…”

“…The included effects were breed, day of slaughter, hot dressed weight, Longissimus dorsi eye muscle area and feedlot entry weight. For Group 2, market, cohort, finish and breed were fixed effects and sire was a random effect 14,15 . In addition, separate analyses were performed after nesting genotype within either breed (Group 1) or sire (Group 2) as per Buchanan et al 2 …”

Utilization of Globemallow (Sphaeralcea) Taxa by Sheep

“…The post-grazing utilization scores appropriately indicated the relative amounts of available forage consumed. Johnston (1988aJohnston ( , 1988b also found this approach to be suitable for determining the palatability of Eragrostis curvulu to sheep. In a study of preference of cattle for Punicum taxa, Burns et al (1988) also found that scores could be used to assess animal preference for plant species.…”

“…Four observers scored each plant on a scale which ranged from 0 = no use to 5 q 100% use. The procedure was similar to that used by Johnston (1988aJohnston ( , 1988b to assess palatability of a grass taxa complex.…”

LIGULE: An evaluation of indigenous perennial grasses for dryland salinity management in south-eastern Australia. 2. Field performance and the selection of promising ecotypes

“…Palatability was assessed twice after sheep were allowed access to the nurseries for 5 days in May 1991 and May 1992, using the rating system described by Johnston (1988) (Table 1). After grazing, nurseries were slashed to a height of 10 cm to remove residual dry matter.…”