SIMILARITY ANALYSIS WITH RESPECT TO SOME QUALITY INDICATORS AND QUALITY CATEGORIES BASED ON RELATIVE FORAGE QUALITY RANGES OF DESIRABLE RANGELAND FORAGES

One of factors to take into consideration to improve the rangeland quality is forage quality indicators (FQI) such as neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), digestible dry matter (DDM), dry matter intake (DMI), crude protein (CP), metabolizable energy (ME), relative feed value (RFV) and relative forage quality (RFQ). To study the relations among these indicators and to evaluate the sources of relationships and variations among the rangeland forages, 45 different desirable forage species were collected from Akdag rangelands in Samsun province of Turkey in 2015 and 2016. All FQI were analysed using the restricted maximum likelihood and a multivariate approach. The legume, grass and the other plant family species exhibited generally the highest, the lowest and intermediate FQI, respectively. The quality score based on RFQ was higher for the other family species than those for the legume and grass species. The NDF and ADF contents of species showed negative relationship with ME, RFV and RFQ, while the CP was positively and negatively correlated with these variables. The DDM, ME, RFV, RFQ and DMI components accounted for 86.68% of total variation of species. The first cluster composed of, in general, the legume and the other family species, whereas second cluster included all grass species. In conclusion, the legume and the other family species showed higher quality than grass species. The FQI appeared mainly botanical family dependent rather than single species. The ME, RFV and RFQ rather than the CP should be mainly considered for evaluation of species.