Quality Indices for Leguminous and Non-Leguminous Tropical Forages Based on Cell Wall Constituents

Nutritional evaluation of grasses and legumes was carried out to assess the forage quality which is essential in evaluation and ranking of forages. Forage quality indices such as Relative Feed Value (RFV) and Relative Forage Quality (RFQ) were calculated based on DMI, DDM and TDN for various forages which in turn are dependent on NDF and ADF, respectively. RFV and RFQ of legumes (119 and 117) were found to be higher than grasses (85 and 79) indicating that legumes are superior to grasses in quality. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that the legumes can be graded as good quality and grasses as fair quality based on mean values for NDF, ADF, DMI and RFV as 64.5, 39.5, 1.9 and 85; 47.0, 37.5, 2.6 and 119, respectively.