Bio-functions and molecular carbohydrate structure association study in forage with different source origins revealed using non-destructive vibrational molecular spectroscopy techniques

The objectives of this study were to: 1) investigate forage carbohydrate molecular structure profiles; 2) bio-functions in terms of CHO rumen degradation characteristics and hourly effective degradation ratio of N to OM (HEDN/OM), and 3) quantify interactive association between molecular structures, bio-functions and nutrient availability. The vibrational molecular spectroscopy was applied to investigate the structure feature on a molecular basis. Two sourced -origin alfalfa forages were used as modeled forages. The results showed that the carbohydrate molecular structure profiles were highly linked to the bio-functions in terms of rumen degradation characteristics andhourly effective degradation ratio. The molecular spectrostopic technique can be used to detect forage carbohydrate structure features on a molecular basis and can be used to study interactive association between forage molecular structure and bio-functions. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.