Application of Lineweaver–Burk data transformation to explain animal and plant performance as a function of nutrient supply

Abstract

This study evaluates the effect of dry-season concentrate supplementation on growing cattle performance grazing tropical pasture and the impact of nitrogen fertilization on the growth rate of tropical pasture (tons of dry herbage mass/ha/110 days) and on the subsequent stocking rate and cattle performance during the rainy season (kg body weight gain/ha/110 days). The animal and plant responses were curvilinear to the increasing amount of nutrient supply and followed the typical saturation kinetics of enzyme systems, a Michaelis–Menten relationship. The Lineweaver–Burk data transformation explained efficiently the animal and plant responses to the nutrient supply. This methodology consists in evaluating the linear regressions of the reciprocal of animal and plant responses as a function of the reciprocal of nutrient supply. The half maximum growth rates for plant and animal to nutrient supply were verified with the proportions from .048 to .056 of the amount needed to cause .95 of theoretical maximum responses. From the curvilinear response, it can be verified that the marginal increase in animal and plant growth rate reduces as the amount of nutrient supply increases.