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Some nutritional and physical properties of alfalfa (Medicago sativa Linn) seeds

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting  162461889.(doi:10.13031/aim.20162461889)
Authors:   Yang Gao, Jie Yang, Dandan Kong
Keywords:   alfalfa, Medicago sativa Linn, nutritional properties, physical properties

Abstract. The physical properties of alfalfa seeds are necessary for the design of mechanical equipments for seeding, harvesting, storing, processing, and separating of seeds. In this research, the nutritional properties of alfalfa seeds were determined, also, physical properties such as seed dimensions, true density, bulk density, porosity, 1000 seed mass, terminal velocity, hardness, angle of repose, static coefficient of friction on different surfaces (wood, glass, chipboard, rubber, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), sheet iron and galvanized sheet iron) were measured at the same moisture content.

At the 10.67% moisture content, the seed length, width, thickness, geometric mean diameter, sphericity, seed volume, surface area, aspect ratio were determined as 2.355±0.256 mm, 1.464±0.155 mm, 1.046±0.109 mm, 1.529±0.112 mm, 65.389±5.718 %, 16.329±6.476 mm3, 7.384±1.067 mm2 and 0.628±0.091 %, respectively; true density, bulk density, porosity, 1000 seed mass, terminal velocity, hardness and angle of repose were found as 1421.52±52.45 kgm-3, 710.54±6.69 kgm-3, 50.02±3.54 %, 2.521±0.135 g, 3.94±1.18 ms-1, 14.98±4.04 N, 38±1.15°, respectively. The value of the static coefficient of friction was 0.609±0.052 on wood surface, 0.384±0.041 on glass surface, 0.544±0.023 on chipboard surface, 0.531±0.028 on rubber surface, 0.438±0.032 on polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) surface, 0.287±0.019 on iron sheet surface and 0.459±0.032 on galvanized iron sheet surface, respectively.

The values of some nutritional properties (crude protein, crude oil, crude fiber, crude ash, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), nitrogen-free extract (NFE), Ca, P, S, K, Na, Mg, Zn, Mn, Fe, Cu, Se) of alfalfa seed were also established. In addition, alfalfa seed is rich in some nutritional constituents, such as 36.56 % of crude protein, 12.11 % of crude fiber, 30.25 % of neutral detergent fiber (NDF), 30.12 % of nitrogen-free extract (NFE), 8100 mgkg-1 of K, 2000 mgkg-1 of Mg, 110 mgkg-1 of Na, 85 mgkg-1 of Fe.

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