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Heritability Estimates and Correlations of Yield and Certain Morphological and Chemical Components of Forage Quality in Sericea Lespedeza 1
Author(s) -
Cope W. A.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci1962.0011183x000200010003x
Subject(s) - forage , heritability , yield (engineering) , lespedeza , citation , agricultural experiment station , crop , agronomy , biology , library science , agriculture , computer science , ecology , materials science , genetics , metallurgy
SERICEA, Lespedeza cuneata (Dum. de Cours.) G. Don, is recognized as a low quality forage crop. Present production is limited to vigorous, hardy commercial strains developed with no selection for forage quality. Studies on components of quality in sericea have indicated two broad groups of characters: morphological characters related to animal intake and chemical constituents related to either intake or nutritive value. Palatability is at least partly related to stem and leaf characteristics. Donnelly (4) has shown the preference of beef steers for plants with fine, pliable stems. In further studies (8) it was found that rabbits consumed more of the fine-stemmed than coarsestemmed types. High intake and digestibility of the finestemmed sericea were associated with higher total digestible nutrients, crude fiber, and nitrogen-free extract. Nutritional value of forages is related to chemical components which in themselves may be limiting in quantity or quality or else directly detrimental to digestion or other physiological processes. In sericea, protein quantity and quality are examples of limiting components (7), while tannin, which interferes with intake and probably with digestibility, is an example of detrimental components (12). In breeding forage species for quality, refinements are needed in methods of measuring and determining the effects of both morphological and chemical characters.