Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1960

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Animal Husbandry

Major Professor

C.S. Hobbs

Committee Members

R.J. Cooper, Harold J. Smith

Abstract

Pastures supply a major portion of the total feed used in producing beef in the Southeast. The importance of productive and nutritious pastures to the beef cattle industry for many years to come is inevitable. Therefore, economical and profitable production of beef will be greatly dependent on the type of pasture used* Because of this dependence the beef producer needs to know which pastures will produce the greatest returns for his labors.

In Tennessee there is a critical need for the evaluation of the established pastures more commonly used for beef production, such as orchardgrass-Ladino clover pastures. If accurate evaluations are to be made, information is needed regarding the relative importance of the various characteristics included in pasture analysis such as species percentage, height of the various species, stage of maturity, color and carrying capacity.

Evaluating or scoring pastures accurately has been one of the most difficult problems confronting researchers. Members of the University of Tennessee Animal Husbandry-Veterinary Science Department developed a pasture scoring system whereby important pasture information could be systematically recorded. The system was used to score the pastures on all of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Stations where pasture work was conducted! namely, Highland Rim Experiment Station, Springfield; Middle Tennessee Experiment Station, Spring Hill; Tobacco Experiment Station, Greeneville; and the Main Experiment Station, Knoxville, Tennessee.

This thesis will be a report of the findings obtained when correlations were made between the various factors used in scoring orchardgrass-Ladino clover pastures and average daily gain, total grazing days per acre and total beef gain per acre. The data used were obtained at the experiment stations located at Springfield, Greeneville and Knoxville and were collected from the period 1953-1959 with the following objectives:

1. To evaluate the relationships of the various items scored to the animals’ performance.

2. To determine which pasture characteristics are most closely related to the performance of the animals.

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