Influence of growth stage and season on the energy value of fresh herbage. 1. Changes in metabolizable energy content

The energy value and chemical composition of 70 herbages harvested over two years as either spring primary growths of increasing maturity (n= 32), summer regrowths (n= 14) or autumn regrowths of increasing maturity (n= 24) are reported. The herbages, which were dominated by perennial ryegrass, were harvested from commercial grassland on four sites in England in1986 (year 1) and 1987 (year 2). Digestibility and energy values were determined in vivo using wether sheep. In year 1, autumn regrowths had significantly (P < 0·05) lower neutral detergent fibre concentrationsthan summer regrowths, and lignin was lower (P < 0·05) in spring than in summer herbages. In year 2, autumn herbages had significantly(P < 0·05) higher concentrations of crude protein and hemicellulose than summer and autumn herbages. Spring herbages had higher concentrations of water-soluble carbohydrates than summer (P 0·01) and autumn (P < 0·001) herbages. A higher (P < 0·05) metabolizable energy (ME) concentration was observed in spring compared with summer herbages in year 2 and in general there was considerably more variability in the values for the spring growths, ME content fell with increasing maturity in spring growths(0·046 and 0·035 MJ kg^-1 DM per day; years 1and 2 respectively) and this decline was 3–4 times faster than for autumn-harvested material (0·012 and 0·017 MJ kg^-1 DM per day; years 1 and 2 respectively). In both years only immature spring herbages consistently produced ME contents in excess of 11·9 MJ kg^-1 DM. For 15 of the herbages the proportion of gross energy intake (GEI) lost as methane was measured directly using respiration chambers. The mean methane energy loss was 0·07 of GEI (range 0·057–0·082). A commonly used publish equation for predicting methane energy loss was shown not to be appropriate, although no relationships could be established between methane energy loss and either energy digestibility in vivo or chemical composition.