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A grazing trial was conducted with six half-sib yearling Angus steers (average initial weight 281 kg) to quantitate nutrient composition and voluntary intake of vegetative regrowth forage in low-endophyte (Acremonium coenophialum Morgan-Jones and Gams) Kentucky-31 tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) pasture. A new .6-ha section in each of two 3.0-ha pastures (three steers/pasture) was clipped to a 5-cm height on five consecutive days to establish a series of plots that could be grazed continuously during 5-d test periods at uniform stages of vegetative regrowth; each period represented a specific regrowth stage (7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 d). Steers were conditioned by training them to graze to satiety while tethered with an adjustable-length rope to a 1-m galvanized steel post. Grazing time was limited to two sessions daily beginning at 0800 and 1400, and satiety was achieved after no more than 2.5 h of continuous grazing in each session. Forage DM availability was controlled by adjusting tether length and was set each day at 4% of steer BW. Fecal DM output was measured by chromic oxide dilution. A quadratic (P less than .05) effect of regrowth stage was observed for forage contents of NDF and ADF due to abrupt increases in both fractions at wk 5; values for ADL were unaffected by stage of forage regrowth. Forage contents of CP and ash showed a cubic (P less than .05) response to advancing stage of regrowth, with highest (23.6 and 11.0%, respectively) and lowest (14.7 and 9.1%, respectively) values for both fractions occurring at wk 1 and 5, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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The research aims to assess the local addition of selected heavy metals (Pb, Cd, and Cu) when dumpsite soil is used as a soil amendment and the ability of Amaranth (NH536–1) to phytoremediate the soil. It was a pot experiment conducted at Kogi State University's Faculty of Agriculture in Ayangba. The soil samples were collected from a dumpsite and arable soil. The dumpsite soil application to the arable soil was at different rates:10kg Arable soil (Treatment 1, control), 8kg Arable soil+ 2kg Dumpsite soil (Treatment 2), 6kg Arable soil+ 4kg Dumpsite soil (Treatment 3), 4kg Arable soil + 6kg Dumpsite soil (Treatment 4), 2kg Arable soil+ 8kg Dumpsite soil (Treatment 5) and 10kg Dumpsite soil (Treatment 6). The result shows that the concentration of heavy metals: Lead (Pd), Cadmium (Cd), and Copper (Cu) increased significantly as the concentration of dumpsite soil increased. Lead (Pb) has the highest concentration, while copper (Cu) has the lowest concentration. The result also shows that the plant's metal concentration depends on their concentration in the habitual soil environment. Thus, the Amaranth was able to show phytoremediation potential on soil heavy metals content. The trend of Amaranth potential phytoremediation heavy metals from the soil is in the sequence Lead Pb> Copper (Cu) >Cadmium (Cd).