Comparison of techniques for determination of soluble sugars used in feed for ruminant nutrition

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate different techniques for determination of soluble sugars (fraction CA) in foods used for ruminant nutrition. Feed analyzed were: sugar-cane, bermuda grass, corn meal and soybean meal. Dry matter (DM), ash, ether extract (EE) and crude protein (CP) were determined to make possible the calculation of total carbohydrates concentration in the samples. The soluble carbohydrate fraction were determined in 15 repetitions of each sample by two different analytical techniques. One technique based on soluble carbohydrates extraction and its quantification by spectrophotometry after chelation of the sugar with anthrone; and another one that uses phenol as the chelating agent. The experiment were conducted in a completely randomized design and the data submitted to the two-factor factorial analysis of variance (? = 0.05), with the different feeds and the two techniques as factors. There was no statistical difference between techniques, but the effect of the feed and the interaction feed x technique were significant. So, a new analysis of variance was conducted to test the difference between techniques in each feed separately. Only soybean meal did not show statistical difference between the water soluble sugars determined by the two techniques.