Utilization of pasture and forages by ruminants: A historical perspective

Pastures, forages, and grasslands dominate the landscape across the United States and support a large ruminant population that supplies the nation with value-added animal products. A historical perspective is presented of the innovations as they occurred in the Journal of Animal Science over the past 100 yr in pasture and forage research. Consideration was given to both animal and pasture perspectives. Areas given consideration from the animal perspective were schemes for feedstuff analysis, experimental design and statistics, forage sample preservation, indirect methods of measuring intake and digestion, TDN and energy, nutritive value, harvested forage, and innovations in the grazing environment. Areas given consideration from the forage perspective were a framework for forage-animal interface research, determining pasture yield, choice of stocking method, grazing management, partitioning of forage DM, near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy technology, antiquality constituents, and forage sample preservation. Finally, the importance was discussed of applying research results from the forage-animal interface to general ruminant nutrition research beyond the interface that is focused on altered diets.