The utilization of cereal straws are limited by their low nutritive value and bulkiness which prevents ruminants from consuming sufficient to meet their nutrient requirements. However, recently there has been interest in furthering the use of cereal straws as food for ruminants. The main objective of the present study was to provide information on the degradability of straw for cereal varieties recently included on the SAC recommended lists. A further objective was to examine the between farm variation in degradability of straw for individual cereal varieties and to assess how this may be affected by management practices in the field.

Forty two samples of straw comprising three varieties of winter wheat, four varieties of winter barley and seven varieties of spring barley straw were collected from farms in and around the North East of Scotland. The potential degradabilities of the straw was measured using three different techniques; 1) the nylon bag technique (0rskov, 1985); 2) in vitro analysis, and 3) near infra red analysis (NIR).