Hossein Arzani; javad Motamedi(torkan); Mahmood Hamidian; Zahra Arzani; Majid Akhshi
Abstract
To achieve the desired level of animal performance providing animal food supplies containing mineral elements is essential. For this purpose, mineral elements of 8 important rangeland species, including Ferula ovina, Prangus uloptera, Medicago sativa, Lotus goeblia, Trifolium montanum, Melilotus officinalis, ...
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To achieve the desired level of animal performance providing animal food supplies containing mineral elements is essential. For this purpose, mineral elements of 8 important rangeland species, including Ferula ovina, Prangus uloptera, Medicago sativa, Lotus goeblia, Trifolium montanum, Melilotus officinalis, Sanguisorba minor and Stachys inflate, were measured at different growth stages in the summer pastures of Taleghan. Therefore, at each growth stage 3 samples were taken and for each sample at least five vegetable bases were removed from different vegetation types. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and to see the sources of variation within groups the Duncan test was utilized. Moreover, T-test was used to compare the values of mentioned elements with the critical level to provide the daily requirements of an animal unit in the maintenance mode. The results show that the values of minerals at the early stages of growth are more than those at the final stages of development (seeding stage). Moreover, the mentioned values in each stage of the growth are not uniform among the studied species. In general, the studied species are in good condition in terms of the calcium, iron, copper, cobalt and manganese values for meeting the daily needs of animals. However, they are not in optimal condition in terms of the highly consumed elements such as sodium and magnesium values at different growth stages, especially at later stages of growth, for meeting the daily needs of animals. This indicates that the desirability of grassland forage at different times of grazing is not identical regarding the mineral elements. It is normal that depending on the year’s conditions the values of plant mineral elements may change slightly; however, due to the cost of determining mineral elements, the results can be used to estimate the daily animal needs in different years.
Hossein Arzani; Mehdi Moameri; Javad Motamedi; Mashaallah Mohammadpour
Abstract
One of the important factors to make a balance between number of grazing livestock and grazing capacity is whether forage contains sufficient energy and protein during grazing period or not. Therefore in this study, forage quality was evaluated for important species in steppe rangelands of Changuleh ...
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One of the important factors to make a balance between number of grazing livestock and grazing capacity is whether forage contains sufficient energy and protein during grazing period or not. Therefore in this study, forage quality was evaluated for important species in steppe rangelands of Changuleh located in Ilam province. To do this, samples from four species of Hammada salicornia, Salsola lanchnantha, Convolvulus oxyphyllus and Pteropyrum noeanum, those made considerable components of rangelands vegetation in the region, were collected during three phenological stages (active growth, flowering and maturating) over 2008. Then chemical compositions were determined including crude protein (CP), acid detergent fiber (ADF), dray matter digestibility (DMD) and metabolizable energy (ME). According to the results, maximum CP was obtained from Hammada salicornia in active growth stage. Crude protein component of this species was more than critical level (7%) for sheep in the maintenance condition. Also in this species, ME was in higher critical level (8 Mj/kg) compared with the other species