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Time and Location: Physical Activity Trends in Parents and Children in a Rural Region During COVID-19
Get PDFIntroduction: COVID-19 restrictions altered the structure of the school and workday for families with children and led to changes in active transportation. Continued restrictions impacted access to many community locations and led to changes in physical activity (PA) behavior.
Purpose: The objectives of the study were to describe the changes in the 1) amount of PA time per day, 2) frequency of PA, and 3) sitting time. Information about how PA changed for parents and children during the COVID-19 pandemic will have potential implications for education, public health, and recreation management.
Methods: This cross-sectional study enlisted participants via an online survey to evaluate their and their children’s perceived PA behaviors before and during COVID-19. The study focused on parents in a rural Appalachian region within a Southeastern state, recruited through convenience sampling.
Results: About one-third of parents reported an increase in time (37%) and frequency (33%) while two-thirds either stayed the same or decreased. Parents\u27 time spent sitting increased in over half of the sample (50.8%). Parent perceptions of their children\u27s changes in PA indicate that 49.2% reported lower recreational (i.e., free/leisure) PA, 13.7% reported less time participating in PA overall, and 43.8% noted a decrease in the number of days their child was physically active per week.
Implications: Findings from this study show that trends in PA for rural families shifted during COVID-19 restrictions. Despite these restrictions, some parents demonstrated resilience by maintaining or increasing their PA levels. This highlights the need to further explore factors that support PA behaviors during periods of limited access to structured PA settings
Natural and Artificial Drying Effects on Condensed Tannins of Sericea lespedeza
Get PDFSericea lespedeza [Lespedeza cuneata (Dumont-Cours.) G. Don.] is well adapted to acid soils and low fertility but has generally been considered a low-quality forage due to high levels of tannin and indigestible fiber. Tannin levels increase during midsummer (Windham et al. 1988). The most commonly used assay for tannin in sericea is the vanillin-HCl procedure (Burns, 1963) on oven-dried samples. Oven-drying has been reported to cause increased polymerization or oxidative changes in tannins (Goldstein and Swain, 1963). Fresh-frozen sericea contained higher amounts of extractable tannin than field-dried forage and fiber digestibility of high-tannin sericea by sheep was much lower in fresh forage than in the hay (Terrill et al. 1988). Preservation method is important in correlation of laboratory data with actual field levels of tannin, but it may also affect animal performance as drying may reduce tannin levels and improve forage digestibility. Our objective in this experiment was to determine the effect of preservation method on tannin in sericea lespedeza as determined by the vanillin-HCl procedure
The Effect of N and K Fertilizers on the NO3 Content of Different Grass Species and Mixtures
Get PDFThe major quantity of the annual grassland vegetation comes from the first cut in Hungary because of the continental climate of the country. Next to the energy content of grasses it is important to have informations about the amount of some possible toxic components such as nitrate. The critical NO3- value is considered to be 0.25-0.31 % in DM (Andreev, 1981), NO3 content higher than 0.6 % in DM is toxic (Kemp et al., 1977). Ebert et al. (1977) showed that 120 kg/ha N given for the 1st cut did not raise NO3 content higher than the critical value. K fertilizer-applied with N lowers the NO3 content. The objective of our study was to determine how N and K fertilization influences the No3- content of grasses in the first cut
Electronic Measurement of Grazing Time and Intake in Free Roaming Livestock
Get PDFHerbage intake is one of the critical factors in understanding why livestock perform at various levels on different forages, however acceptable methods of measuring voluntary intake of free-roaming livestock are still lacking. Commonly used indirect measurement methods estimate pasture herbage loss or animal gain, fecal output and digestibility equations, grazing behavior calculations or indicators (Greenlaugh, 1982). More direct attempts of measuring intake include the Animal Weight Telemetry System (AWATS) of Horn and Miller (1979), multiple impedance plethysmography (Stuth et al., 1981) and the conductivity transducing cannula (CTC: Forwood et al., 1985). With new technology becoming available in smaller, more affordable packages, researchers are constantly challenged to adapt and apply available instrumentation to their field of research. The Thermal Conductivity Cannula (TCC) and Telemetric Grazing Clock (TGC) are two examples of attempts to improve intake measurement of freeroaming grazers by application of advanced technology
Prediction of the Yield of Nutritive Matter in some Autumn Cut Forage Catchcrops
Get PDFArable land often lies fallow for a time, which provides an opportunity for growing fodder catchcrops between two main crops. This practice should improve the soil structure, conserve soil moisture, eliminate many weeds, maximise land use and enable easier preparation for the subsequent main crop. Moreover, subsequent cereal yields may be increased by preceding forage legume crops (Papastylianou and Samios, 1987). The aim of present investigation was to determine the concentration of promising autumn cut catchcrops (D-value) and to assess the possibility of predicting the yield of digestible organic matter (DOM) from the yield of green or dry matter (DM)
Animal Performance as Effected by Herbage Availability and Quality in Semi-Arid Southern African Grassland
Get PDFRotational grazing with beef cattle is widely advocated and practised under commercial pastoralism in semi-arid grassland in southern Africa. Since animal performance is largely a function of the quality and quantity of forage ingested, changes in herbage quality and availability in these situations are likely to have an important influence on animal production. The objective of this paper is therefore to quantify changes in the quality of herbage ingested by beef cattle at different times of the year and as grazing pressure increases within periods of occupation on rotationally grazed semi-arid grassland in southern Africa. The effect of these changes will be evaluated in terms of their influence on herbage intake and on animal performance
Smooth Brome Response to Rate and Date of Mefluidide Application
Get PDFSmooth brome (Bromus inermis Leyss.) often produces over 70 % of its annual growth during spring. Summer growth and forage quality are poor. Mefluidide suppresses seedstalk production and improves forage quality of many cool-season grasses (Sheaffer and Marten, 1986). This study evaluated the response of smooth brome to date and rate of mefluidide application
Composition Chimique, Valeur Alimentaire et Production du Ray Grass D\u27Italie (Lolium multiflorum L.) Conduit en Irrigue Sous Climat Mediterraneen
Get PDFLa culture de la luzerne (Medicago sativa L.) dans le Nord Ouest du Maroc se heurte a de nombreuses difficultes parmi lesquelles les conditions pedoclimatiques defavorables a son implantation. C\u27est la raison pour laquelle les systemes fourragers de cette region reposent essentiellement sur !\u27utilisation en vert du bersim (Trifolium alexandrinum L.) pendant l\u27hiver et le printemps. Cependant, la tres forte teneur en eau de cette plante la rend tres difficile a conserver, ce qui pose des problemes de calendrier alimentaire pour les troupeaux laitiers pendant l\u27ete et le debut d\u27automne. De ce fait, !\u27introduction du Ray-grass d\u27Italie (RGI) a ete effectuee afin de« doubler» le bersim par un autre fourrage de conservation plus aisee afin de constituer une reserve fourragere sous forme de foin ou d\u27ensilage. Si la croissance et le developpement du RGI ont fait l\u27objet de plusieurs etudes (Ameziane, 1986), les donnees relatives a sa valeur alimentaire sous climat mediterraneen sont plutot rares. La presente etude a pour objectif de connaitre !\u27evolution de la composition chimique et de la valeur alimentaire du RGI en fonction de l\u27age, du stade de developpement et de la saison de vegetation
Evaluation of New Varieties of Fodder Beet (Majoral and Poly Productiva) as New Summer Forages in Egypt
Get PDFInterest in fodder beet has increased dramatically in many parts of the world. Owing to its yield during summer season in Egypt, time during which shortage of green and succulent forage occurs, interest in its cultivation started early (Ghoneim, 1967 and Abou El-Hassan et al., 1971). Fodder beet has improved cows condition and milk yield and quality (Kocisova, 1976; Burckhardt, 1979; De Brabander et al., 1981 and Pearce, 1983). Fodder beet can considerably increase the farm total energy production. However, to grow it successfully the farmer must have an « arable» mentality (Pearce, 1983). The present research was conducted to study the possibility of cultivation and to evaluate the nutritive value of Majoral and Poly Productiva fodder beets. Special interest was directed towards some ruminal parameters when feeding fodder beet with concentrate
Enzymatic Solubility and other Analytic Parameters Predicting Digestibility in Grasses of Middling Food Value
Get PDFFor a long time, laboratories techniques have been applied to predict in vivo digestibility. Among the biological methods, those basing on rumen fluid are the most used in the nutrition laboratories (Osbourn and Siddons, 1980). These techniques, however, present difficulties as the necessity of maintaining rumen-fistulated donor animals, variations in ruminal activity and high cost. For these reasons, the capacity of enzymatic solubility to predict digestibility has been studied in the last few years in different forages : hays, cereal straws, silages and pellets (Aerts et al., 1977 ; Rivero Yeas, 1985), agricultural byproducts (Aerts, 1977; Aguilera and Molina, 1986) and shrubs (Silva et al., 1986; Silva, 1987). It is known that forage crude protein content and digestibility are closely related. Silva (1987) and Kruger et al. (1984) indicate that in agricultural byproducts and low crude protein forages the protein content is a better predictor of digestibility than the cell wall constituents. The purpose of this work was to prove the sensibility of the enzymatic solubility to predict digestibility in grasses of middling food value, and to compare it with the prediction levels reached by other analytic parameters