The n-alkane profile of some native and cultivated forages in Canada

Frage samples were collected from swards growing in Carberry, Manitoba, Brandon, Manitoba, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and St. John’s, Newfoundland, and the alkane concentrations were determined by gas chromatography. Considerable differences were observed in almost all odd-numbered alkanes and in thei...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Journal of Animal Science
Main Authors: Boadi, D. A., Moshtaghi Nia, S. A., Wittenberg, K. M., McCaughey, W. P.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Canadian Science Publishing 2002
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Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.4141/a01-084
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.4141/A01-084
Description
Summary:Frage samples were collected from swards growing in Carberry, Manitoba, Brandon, Manitoba, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and St. John’s, Newfoundland, and the alkane concentrations were determined by gas chromatography. Considerable differences were observed in almost all odd-numbered alkanes and in their total content between species. The odd-numbered alkanes were always present in high concentrations compared to the even-chain alkanes in both native and cultivated species. Of the cultivated grasses, the fescues had very high concentrations of CN 31 among the odd-chain alkanes, while the legumes tended to have higher concentrations of C 29 than C 31 or C 33 . The low concentrations of odd-chain alkanes (< 50 mg kg -1 DM) in little bluestem, indiangrass, reed canarygrass, orchardgrass, timothy and Russian wildrye forages could bias intake calculations of these forages when the double alkane technique is used. Differences between location and cultivar were observed for C 29 in timothy and C 31 in meadow bromegrass (P < 0.05). There were no effects of location and cultivar on n-alkane concentrations for orchardgrass (P > 0.05). Key words: n-alkanes, forage species, cultivar, location