The availability of iron on certain grass, clover and herb species Part II. Alsike, broad red clover, kent wild white clover, trefoil and lucerne

Abstract

1. The availability of iron in five species of legumes has been investigated, using the rat as the experimental animal.2. Two procedures were employed, namely, the increase in blood haemoglobin concentration, and the gain in total grams of haemoglobin, by nutritionally anaemic rats.3. Inorganic iron, as ferric chloride, was shown to be significantly more available than the iron contained in the five legumes.4. A significant difference in iron availability between alsike and wild white clover was obtained with both methods of expressing the results. Differences between other species were not significant.5. The data are compared with those obtained for three species of grass in an identical experiment reported previously.