Nutritional evaluation of triticale, wheat and rye grain using red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum) larvae and chickens

Larval development of Tribolium castaneum was used to evaluate nutritionally some primary and secondary triticale, rye and wheat grain. Larval development was as good on diets containing triticales as on wheat-based control diet. However, test wheat and rye grain were significantly inferior. The larval development was positively (r = 0.87) correlated to the Kjeldahl nitrogen content of cereals. Deficiencies of either lysine or methionine, or of both of them were the cause of poor nutritional value of the test rye and wheat grain. The growth of chickens and of Tribolium larvae was used to assay some other wheats and triticale samples. The results were not strictly comparable because of the differences in the composition of the test diets.