Selection of quality pasture forages for productivity, nutritive value and animal performance require long-term, expensive trials. Simpler and accurate techniques to detect quality differences among genotypes have been proposed (Mackinnon et al., 1988; Hughes et al., 2000). This paper discusses the use of shearing strength in Brachiaria brizantha ecotypes to correlate physical traits with chemical composition: the objective being the identification of cultivars of improved quality forage suitable to the savannas of Brazil
