Serum metabolic profile based assessment of nutritional status of temperate crossbred, stall-fed, lactating dairy cows: a case study of a medium scale mid-country cattle farm

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the angola grass ( Brachiaria mutica (Forsk.) Stapf) growing, considering three different densities of plants (without lopping, 1/3 and 2/3 lopped) and four different harvest ages (14, 28, 56, 70 days), from April 1980 to July 1980, in the Departamento de Zootecnia at Universidade Federal de Lavras, localized in Lavras, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The trial was conducted in completed blocks design with subdivided parcels. The densities were evaluated in the parcels and the harvest ages in the subparcels. The following items were evaluated: the dry matter production of the whole plant, the leaves and the peduncles, the leaf-peduncle relation, the leaf area, the specific leaf area and the index of leaf area. The 2/3 lopped plants presented the largest recuperation capacity, showing the efficiency of the angola grass competition. KEY-WORDS: Specific leaf area; index of leaf area; leaf-peduncle relation.