Measurements of Forage Quality

Summary The important take-home messages from this review are:  Conditions for routine determination of dry matter (DM) by oven-drying need to be standardized to improve reproducibility among laboratories. Reference methods need to be adopted that measure DM more accurately than “loss of weight by oven drying” because volatile matter other than water creates errors in DM determination.  Ash needs to be a routine measurement of quality, and the organic matter (OM) in total DM and in forage components should be reported because OM more accurately measures the nutrients and energy value associated with forage quality.