STORY LEAD:
New Plant May Help Thwart Grass Tetany
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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marcia Wood, (510) 559-6070, mwood@asrr.arsusda.gov
April 30, 1999
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A new tall fescue grass called "HiMag" may help protect cattle, sheep, goats
and deer from an affliction known as grass tetany. When ruminants--that is,
animals with four stomachs--have too little magnesium in their blood, grass
tetany can result.
Also known as hypomagnesemia, grass tetany often is fatal. It causes an
estimated $50 to $150 million in livestock production losses each year in
the United States.
American pastureland has more tall fescue than any other forage grass. And
because the new variety is unusually high in magnesium, it should help
protect vulnerable animals from magnesium deficiencies. Plans call for HiMag
seed to be made available to plant breeders this year, according to ARS soil
scientist Henry F. Mayland at the ARS Northwest Irrigation and Soils
Research Laboratory at Kimberly, Idaho.
Mayland developed HiMag tall fescue with Glenn E. Shewmaker--formerly with
ARS and now with the University of Idaho--and David A. Sleper and colleagues
at the University of Missouri, Columbia.
The idea of breeding a high-magnesium forage grass to combat grass tetany
isn't new. But the ARS scientists and their university co-researchers are
the first to accomplish that with tall fescue. They recommend HiMag for
rain-fed pastures in eastern, southeastern and Pacific Northwestern States
and British Columbia. So far, it has been tested in Arkansas, Georgia,
Idaho, Missouri, New York, Texas, Utah and Virginia as well as in Canada.
An article in the April issue of the ARS monthly journal, Agricultural
Research, tells more. View it on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/apr99/himag0499.htm
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Scientific contact: Henry F. Mayland, ARS Northwest Irrigation and Soils
Research Laboratory, Kimberly, Idaho, phone (208) 423-6562, fax (208)
423-6555, mayland@kimberly.ars.pn.usbr.gov, http://kimberly.ars.usda.gov.
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