Abstract
Three digestion trials were conducted with sheep to compare the digestibility of the pentosan and cell wall fractions of various sorghum crops to corn silage and perennial forages. Stover and sorghum silages had the highest pentosan contents (19-20%) and alfalfa the lowest (11%). Cellulose and pentosan digestibility in the ten forages ranged from 37 to 78% and 46 to 78%, respectively. The digestibility of alfalfa pentosan was higher than that of alfalfa cellulose, whereas the digestibilities of the two polysaccharides were similar in the grasses and sorghums. Early-stage orchardgrass hay and the vegetative-stage sorghum-Sudan grass green chop forages demonstrated very high pentosan digestibilities; whereas, two forage sorghum silages and corn stover silage were low. Pentose disappearance in an in vitro rumen fermentation was not a good measure of pentose digestibility. Acid detergent lignin content was not well correlated with cellulose or pentosan digestibility.
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