Palatability to sheep of the Eragrostis curvula complex. 1. Methods of assessing palatability

Abstract

This paper evaluates a method of judging palatability to sheep of accessions of Eragrostu curvula. Scores of from 0 (not grazed) to 10 (completely grazed) are compared with measured herbage consumption and percentage consumption values on 5 occasions at Orange and on 3 occasions in each of 2 trials at Wagga Wagga, N.S.W. Allowing for differences in initial herbage availability, regressions of score ranks pooled over all assessments of the 3 trials explained 65, 62 and 66%, respectively, of the variation in leaf, stem and total herbage consumption ranks. Most of the variation in stem consumption, however, was due its availability rather than palatability. It was concluded that palatability could meaningfully be predicted from score ranks alone. Comparison of different observers' scores allocated after several grazings showed that observers were consistent in their ranking. The results demonstrate the usefulness and merits of the different methods of assessing palatability.