Table 6.

Effect of harvesting pea hay (Pisum sativum L.; c.v. CDC Horizon) at EARLY, MID, and LATE maturities on ruminal pool sizes of DM, aNDF_OM, and uNDF_OM, and the passage and reticulo-ruminal degradation rates of aNDF_OM for yearling beef heifers

Variable	EARLY1	MID	LATE	SEM	P-value
Reticulo-ruminal pool, kg
Total	49.1	47.5	47.9	2.06	0.78
DM	9.2	10.2	9.0	3.29	0.55
aNDFOM	6.4	7.0	6.1	2.20	0.57
uNDFOM	4.8	5.0	4.4	1.55	0.61
Potentially degradable aNDFOM2	1.7	2.0	1.8	0.66	0.32
aNDFOM kp, %/h	2.10ab	2.24a	1.89b	0.459	0.022
aNDFOM kd, %/h	2.55	1.83	2.10	0.514	0.15

¹Harvest maturities consisted of EARLY (plants with flat pods at one or more nodes), MID (filled pods at one or more nodes and leaves that were turning from green to gold), and LATE (yellow dry seeds filled pods on most nodes, and the leaves and pods were yellow).

²Potentially degradable NDF was calculated as (aNDF_OM – uNDF_OM).

^abMeans within a row with uncommon superscripts are different (P < 0.05).