Table 2.

Mean results for the ergovaline dosage trial (Exp. 2) on DMI, water consumption, serum prolactin concentration, and reticuloruminal motility contraction variables measured for 57 d in E− and E+ tall fescue seed-treated steers

	Treatment			P-value
Item	E− 1	E+ 2	SEM3	Seed	Dose	Seed × dose
DMI, kg	8.15	8.14	0.19	0.962	0.046	0.351
24-h water intake, L	39.94	42.68	4.68	0.751	<0.001	0.302
Water intake (0800 to 1200 h), L	21.50	13.29	5.63	0.490	0.808	0.716
Water intake (1200 to 2000 h), L	15.96	20.23	4.09	0.595	0.048	0.001
Serum prolactin, ng/mL	39.95	3.54	7.27	0.106	0.315	0.281
Rumen content, kg	37.75	42.46	1.41	0.254	0.551	0.062
Rumen content, DM%	14.41	15.14	1.31	0.756	0.192	0.979
Rumen DM content, kg	5.47	6.37	0.27	0.257	0.197	0.052
Rumen wet content, kg	32.28	36.10	1.68	0.354	0.524	0.109
g rumen content DM per kg BW	15.21	17.28	1.28	0.456	0.022	0.011
g rumen content DM per kg DMI	671.4	792.7	27.16	0.195	0.045	0.011

¹E−, endophyte-free tall fescue seed.

²E+, Endophyte-infected tall fescue seed; 5, 10, 15 and 20 µg ERV/kg BW/d

³SEM, standard error of the mean, n = 4 steers per treatment.