Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Quality of Ammoniated Brachiaria decumbens Hay

The experiment was conducted at farm Pedrões of the F.C. Agropecuária, located in Uberaba-MG to evaluate the quality of Brachiaria decumbens hays harvested after seed ripening. The hays were submitted to the following treatments: control, anhydrous ammonia (3.0% NH3 in the DM), and urea (5.0% in the DM). The chemical composition, digestibility hays and the performance of steers were evaluated using a complete randomized block design with three treatments and six replications. The ammoniation either with NH3 or urea increased the CP content and the IVDMD. The NH3 treatment reduced the contents of NDF and ADF, and the urea application reduced the contents of hemicellulose and lignin. The ammoniation did not affect the neutral detergent insoluble nitrogen, and acid detergent insoluble nitrogen values. Steers receiving Brachiaria hay plus soybean meal (1.08 kg/day of DM), hay treated with NH3 plus corn meal (1.14 kg/day of DM) and hay treated with urea plus corn meal (1.14 kg/day of DM) showed DM intake of 1.97; 2,23 and 1.90% BW; weight gains of 0.60; 0.53 and 0.37 kg/day, and feed conversion of 10.8; 12.8 and 16.9 of kg DM/kg WG, respectively.

anhydrous ammonia; ammoniation; chemical composition; intake; weight gain; urea


Sociedade Brasileira de Zootecnia Universidade Federal de Viçosa / Departamento de Zootecnia, 36570-900 Viçosa MG Brazil, Tel.: +55 31 3612-4602, +55 31 3612-4612 - Viçosa - MG - Brazil
E-mail: rbz@sbz.org.br