Author(s)

Jason Brett Rushing¹, Uttam K. Saha^2*, Rocky Lemus³, Leticia Sonon², Brian S. Baldwin³

¹Coastal Plain Branch Experiment Station, Mississippi State University, Newton, MS, USA.
²Agricultural and Environmental Services Labs, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
³Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, USA.

Southeastern wildrye (Elymus glabriflorus, Vasey ex L.H. Dewey) is a cool-season, perennial grass native to southeastern United States. Recently, there is a growing interest in its development as a grazing and haying forage crop due to its wide area of adaptation across this region. Consequently, there is a great need for the evaluation of its forage quality by rapid, but accurate analytical methods like Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS). In this study, acceptable NIRS calibration models were developed for: dry matter, DM (n = 113, R² = 0.904, RSCD = 2.54, RSCIQ = 4.65); crude protein, CP (n = 113, R² = 0.974, RSCD = 5.16, RSCIQ = 5.92); acid detergent fiber, ADF (n = 116, R² = 0.896, RSCD = 2.35, RSCIQ = 1.28); neutral detergent fiber, NDF (n = 118, R² = 0.934, RSCD = 2.53, RSCIQ = 3.38); digestible dry matter, DDM (n = 116, R² = 0.895, RSCD = 2.36, RSCIQ = 1.35); dry matter intake, DMI (n = 115, R² = 0.924, RSCD = 2.40, RSCIQ = 2.53); and relative feed value, RFV (n = 114, R² = 0.932, RSCD = 2.94, RSCIQ = 2.81). Prediction of independent validation sets yielded good agreement between the NIRS predicted values and the laboratory reference values for each of: DM (n = 53, R² = 0.831, RPD = 2.45, RPIQ = 4.24); CP (n = 57, R² = 0.967, RPD = 5.37, RPIQ = 7.16); ADF (n = 49, R² = 0.895, RPD = 2.97, RPIQ = 1.51); NDF (n = 53, R² = 0.928, RPD = 3.75, RPIQ = 4.22); digestible dry matter, DDM (n = 55, R² = 0.860, RSCD = 265, RSCIQ = 1.15); dry matter intake, DMI (n = 156, R² = 0.845, RSCD = 2.48, RSCIQ = 2.11); and relative feed value, RFV (n = 55, R² = 0.916, RSCD = 3.45, RSCIQ = 3.04) contents, indicating that all seven calibration models had good quantitative information. Therefore, precise, accurate, and rapid analysis of these important forage quality attributes of southeastern wildrye can be routinely done using the developed NIRS calibration models.

Acid Detergent Fiber, Digestible Dry Matter, Dry Matter Intake, Crude Protein, Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, Neutral Detergent Fiber, Wildrye

Rushing, J. , Saha, U. , Lemus, R. , Sonon, L. and Baldwin, B. (2016) Analysis of Some Important Forage Quality Attributes of Southeastern Wildrye (Elymus glabriflorus) Using Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy. American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 7, 642-662. doi: 10.4236/ajac.2016.79060.