Abstract
In recent years the emphasis on the carotene content of animal feeds has teen greatly accentuated, perhaps the greatest emphasis has teen placed on that basic ingredient of animal feeds — alfalfa, in fact, during the 1947 alfalfa season, the carotene content of the alfalfa overshadowed the protein and fiber content as the means of determining the selling price and grade. |This innovation in the determination of the sell ing price of alfalfa has introduced to the dehydrators and shippers a series of new problems in the treatment of alfalfa meal. Some of the important questions which have been raised are: |(a) Can the original carotene content of the alfalfa in the field be conserved by finer or coarser grinding? |(b) Can the carotene content be conserved by the application of higher temperatures of short duration or lower temperatures of long duration in the heating process of dehydration? |(c) Can the loss of carotene under storage conditions be reduced by the type of container m which the alfalfa is stored?(1) |(d) Can the loss of carotene be reduced by control of the temperature under which the alfalfa is stored? |The reason that the answers to questions (c) and (d) above are important to the shipper is because of his method of delivery to the buyer. The shipper purchases the alfalfa from the grower and dehydrator during the full swing of the alfalfa harvesting season (May through October) and stores it for three to six months for future delivery. He places in storage a batch of alfalfa containing over 250,000 International Units of Vitamin A per pound, confident that he will be able to deliver at least 150,000 IU/lb. to a purchaser in the middle of the winter. Much to his dismay, he generally finds that on delivery, the carotene content of the batch of alfalfa has fallen quite a bit below the 150,000 IU/lb. minimum. This loss necessitates a financial re-adjustment with the purchaser according to the terms of the contract. |This situation has provided the stimulus for this study. This thesis has been undertaken in the hope of clarifying the situation by furnishing the answer to the question of how the carotene loss varies with differences in temperature storage conditions.