Jr. Miller et Nt. Hobbs, EFFECT OF FORAGE HYDRATION ON LAG TIME DURING IN-VITRO DIGESTION OF MEADOW HAY, Grass and forage science, 49(1), 1994, pp. 107-110
Digestion of plant cell wall has been observed to be a first-order pro
cess with an initial lag. Lag is defined as the period of time immedia
tely after forage is exposed to the fermentive environment during whic
h digestion does not occur or occurs at a greatly reduced rate. The ef
fects of forage hydration on lag were investigated by focusing on the
first 20 h of in vitro digestion of meadow hay. Samples were hydrated
for 0, 1, and 16 h before fermentation. Digestion kinetics was estimat
ed by both a first-order kinetics model (KM) and an increasing relativ
e-rate model (RRM). Model parameters were obtained using a non-linear
least-squares procedure. The effect of forage hydration was significan
t, especially for the 16-h treatment. The RRM produced a better fit fo
r the data from each treatment, and a better fit was obtained when eac
h data set was analysed separately.