Nutritive Value of Cool-Season Grass Baleage As Affected By Nitrogen.

Whether forage is produced for baleage or hay, harvest timing and application of nitrogen fertilizer are critical for nutritive value.  In the South timely harvest of cool-season grasses for hay is often impeded by rain.  Production of baleage requires less curing time and accepts a higher moisture level than hay.  In order to better understand quality effects due to anaerobic fermentation of three cool-season grasses: orchardgrass, southeastern wildrye, and tall fescue; 454 gm sub-samples were fermented for six weeks.  Samples were taken from four split nitrogen application rates of (0, 134, 202, and 269 kg ha^-1) with a fixed cutting interval of 38 days.  Post-fermentation samples were dried for 10 days, ground, and analyzed for nutritive quality including: acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, crude protein, and dry matter digestibility.  Data were compared via NIRS with their respective hay samples of the same species.