Summative equations to predict digestibility of tropical browse species for cattle were tested by comparison to in vitro digestibility. Four equations were used for the comparison: first the 2 Van Soest equations, 1 using sulfuric acid lignin and the other using permanganate lignin, neither of which have a correction for tannins. And second, the 2 Horvath equations, each using 1 of the 2 above mentioned lignin values and both include a value for tannin content. The Van Soest equation using permanganate lignin and the Horvath equation using sulfuric acid lignin predicted the in vitro digestibilities of the leaf species quite well (r = 0.89 for both). The same Horvath equation predicted the digestibility of the high tannin species better than the Van Soest equation (r = 0.93 versus 0.84). For initial evaluation and ranking of browse species suitable for future research efforts, either equation suitable. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.