Effect of harvesting time and cultivar on barley quality and predict the nutrient composition

Abstract

The present study was conducted in response to the lack of information on effects of cultivar and harvesting time on nutritional value of barley grown in Iran. The objective of this study was to determine the detailed chemical composition of barley in different cultivar and harvesting time and predict the nutrient composition. Three barley cultivars (Ansar, Abidar and Sahand), were harvested at two stages of growth (ripening of grain GS-91 and forage barley GS-83) and nutrition indices of treatments were determined in the advanced nutrition lab. The results of analysis showed that the effect of harvesting time and cultivar were significant on minerals and crude protein of barley, also the effect of harvesting time was significant on gross energy and crud fat. The highest percentage of minerals was in Sahand cultivar with an average of 7.13%, also the mineral of forage barley (GS-83) was higher than barley in the ripening of grain (GS-91). Sahand cultivar with the mean of 15.3% and GS-83 with a mean of 13.4% had the highest crude protein. The highest amount of gross energy was related to Abidar cultivar at GS-83 with an average of 6416 cal/gr. The mean of GS-83 with 2.1% of crude fat was more than GS-91 with the mean of 1.5%. The result of linear regression model showed that harvesting time and cultivar were effective parameter in prediction of crud protein and mineral content, but only harvesting time could be used in prediction of crud fat and gross energy.