cary i grady writes:
How can I test the sugar content of grasses during different conditions while it is growing. Also how can I test the sugar content of cut hay?
Burn it in a wet bomb calorimeter?? Try a google search for the methodology and see if that helps. The content of sugar could be inferred with the help of some basic graphing and baseline tests. At least that is what we were taught in chemistry. Actually the calorimeter measures the heat of combustion, I would think that this would increase with sugar content for a given sample weight. Anyone else have any suggestions?
Winemakers commonly use a small hand-held optical refractometer device to test the sugar content of grapes. It takes about one drop of juice and the reading is viewed immediately. It would be a bit harder to get a drop of grass juice, and I know nothing about the different kinds of sugar, but it should be a starting point.
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Teaching is a great experience, but there is no better teacher than experience.
Depending on where you are, there are a variety of agricultural services that will give you not just sugar content, but a total analysis. In Texas, we have the Texas A&M extension agency that does this. If you are in the US, there will be similar organizations for whatever state you are in. Also you might check out this website for resources: www.attra.org
One way is to get extract of the grass at an elevated temperature and with known quantity of water. Then it is easier to take molecular absorption spectra in Infrared zone, which can tell sugar contents. Some grass may not have enough water in them but may have good amount of concentrated sugar. We have such plants in India.
Some plants have sugar that is sugar free sugar - hence chemical contents analysis is the best way.
Perhaps Photo-acoustics spectroscopy can provide information directly.
Shyam
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Prof. (Dr.) Shyam, Managing Director for Sensors Technology Private Limited. Gwalior, MP474001, India.
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