Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Institution reports were presented by participants representing Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, USDA-ARS, and Virginia. Discussions were held on all the reports presented at the meeting. The Committee on Standards for Terminology Used in Fescue Toxicosis and the Committee to Investigate Analytical Techniques for Alkaloids and Endophytes presented reports. These were discussed. Approved continuing both committees for next year. In addition, the group continued discussion on its plans to have a web page developed so information can be presented to a broader audience including stakeholders with access to the web.

The following were submitted by members of the group and are presented in alphabetical order by state rather than ranked by importance:

1. Arkansas - Progress is being made on producing a nontoxic, persistent, endophyte-infected tall fescue cultivar based on HiMag. Limited quantities of seed will be commercially available in September, 2002. Seed was produced of tall fescue populations that had undergone three cycles of selection for summer survival under grazing.

2. Georgia - As in 2000, the brood cows on MaxQ tall fescue put on more weight and were in better condition than the cows grazing toxic fescue. Results in 2001 indicated that there were additional reductions in cow-calf performance when cows had grazed toxic pasture in the previous year. This suggests some long-term or carry-over effects associated with grazing toxic fescue. Stocker cattle on toxic fescue did not compensate in the feedlot for the lower gains in the grazing phase and remained lighter in weight than cattle grazing endophyte-free or MaxQ at harvest.

3. Kentucky - Reported on an epidemic of early term abortion of horse fetuses. The syndrome was denoted as Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome (MRLS) and the early term abortions referred to as Early Fetal Loss (EFL). Preliminary results indicated this epidemic not related to tall fescue toxicity but to moderate to high populations of eastern tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum) in mare pastures

4. Mississippi - Tall fescue pastures containing the novel non-toxic endophyte (MaxQ) appeared to have persisted as well as those containing the toxic endophyte. There also appeared to be an interesting trend in animal preference among endophyte types that warrants further investigation.

5. Missouri - Reduced whole blood GSH may be a useful biomarker of oxidative stress in cattle consuming endophyte-infected fescue seed, since decreases in whole blood GSH has been associated with development of several chronic diseases. Supplemental Tasco was found to improve In situ fiber disappearance from Dacron bags in the rumen of cows fed 10 ug ergovaline / kg of body weight. The rat bioassay can distinguish tall fescue cultivars infected with beneficial endophytes from those with toxic endophytes. It requires less than 3 weeks, and can therefore provide early screening of cultivars being considered for large scale grazing experiments. The lack of decline in winter yield, slow loss in forage quality and rapidly falling ergovaline levels in K31 E+, suggests that livestock producers could minimize winter toxicosis by delaying the use of stockpiled K31 E+ until mid or late winter.

6. Oregon - One-hundred-forty-one suspected clinical cases of tall fescue toxicosis came through the OSU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL) or hospital; four were confirmed. In addition, there were 65 suspected clinical cases of staggers from perennial ryegrass brought to the OSU VDL or hospital with 23 confirmed as ryegrass staggers.

7. Tennessee (UT) - Supplementing the diet in some fashion with arginine may alleviate some of
the clinical signs of fescue toxicosis. Once confirmed 30 to 45 days pregnant, no differences were observed in fetal losses from heifers grazing either endophyte infested or endophyte free tall fescue pastures. Therefore, fetal losses associated with endophyte infested tall fescue pastures occur prior to 30 to 45 days.

8. Tennessee (TSU) - Senepol steers are more resilient under a chronic, tall fescue endophyte challenge compared to their Hereford contemporaries. These data support the hypothesis that heat tolerance cattle genetics could be used to overcome problems of poor performance in herds grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue.

9. USDA (Watkinsville, GA) - Mares and ewes excrete alkaloids via urine similar to beef cattle. Suggests urinary alkaloids could be used to test whether any animal type have been grazing toxic tall fescue.

10. Virginia - Haircoat scores and rectal temperatures were generally higher for cattle grazing high-endophyte fescue. Including alfalfa in the pasture did not alleviate these conditions.

The reports published and distributed at the meeting will be presented on the home page for this group as titles with email addresses for contact person for anyone seeing more information.