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Composition and in‐vitro digestibility of carbohydrates of wheat plants harvested at bloom and soft‐dough stages
Author(s) -
BenGhedalia Daniel,
Kabala Amos,
Miron Joshua
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.2740680118
Subject(s) - bloom , hemicellulose , xylose , starch , lignin , food science , composition (language) , chemistry , monosaccharide , agronomy , botany , biology , biochemistry , fermentation , philosophy , ecology , linguistics
Wheat plants ( Triticum aestivum ) were harvested at the bloom and soft‐dough stages, separated into leaves + sheaths, stems and spikes, and the effect of stage of maturity on neutral detergent fibre (NDF) composition and degradability was studied, the accumulation of starch in the spikes compensated for the decrease in the degradability of NDF polysaccharides so that the in‐vitro digestibility of the organic matter (OM) was not changed between the bloom and soft‐dough stages. Minor compositional changes occurred in the NDF of the various botanical fractions which can hardly explain the drop in NDF degradability with maturity. There was a decline in the ratio of hemicellulose to lignin, and the changes in NDF‐monosaccharide degradability were probably related to the extension of covalent bonding between those matrix components during maturation. Irrespective of botanical fraction and maturity stage, NDF xylose was less digestible than NDF glucose. Between bloom and soft‐dough stages there was an increase of 36% in the yield of digestible OM.