Effect of fungal endophyte infection on nutritional quality in Festuca arundinacea.

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) is an important perennial forage grass which is naturally infected by the endophytic fungus Neotyphodium coenophialum. Alkaloids produced in infected plants are responsible for a set of disorders in grazing animals. lt has been shown that the performance of cattle grazing non-infected (E-) tall fescue is superior to that of animals grazing infected (E+) plants. The purpose of this work was to determine the influence of the endophytic fungus on the protein, neutral detergent fibre (NDF), and acid detergent fibre (ADF) contents, and organic matter digestibility (OMD) of tall fescue. An experiment was carried out with E+ and E- tall fescue plants ("Her-1" ecotype) in a greenhouse, at two different fertility treatments. Our results showed that at the high nutrient fertility treatment, NDF content was greater in E-plants (426 g kg-1) than in E+ plants (403 g kg-1) (P<0.05) and the protein content was greater in E+ plants (172 g kg-1) than in E-plants (163 g kg-1) (P<O.1). No significant differences were found in ADF and OMD between endophyte infected and non-infected tall fescue plants. These results suggest that the nutritional qualily of infected tall fescue forage, as indicated by the parameters crude protein and NDF, could be superior to that of non-infected plants, given that toxic alkaloids are not present in the infected plants.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Vázquez de Aldana, Beatriz R., García Ciudad, Antonia, Zabalgogeazcoa, Iñigo, García Criado, Balbino
Format:	artículo biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	European Grassland Federation
Subjects:	Forage quality, Neotyphodium coenophialum, Tall fescue,
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