S. V. DAMAME*, V. B. SHINDE AND S. A. LANDGE
AICRP on Forage Crops & Utilization,
Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri-413722 (Maharashtra), India
(e-mail: shivajidamame@gmail.com)
(Received : 17 August 2023; Accepted : 16 September 2023)
SUMMARY
The present experiment was conducted to utilize delayed harvested hybrid napier cv. Phule Gunwant for silage making. The green forage of hybrid napier (BxN) harvested late at 60 and 70 days was utilized to prepare silage with 2 % and 3% jaggery. The physical and nutritional parameters of silage such as pH, colour, flavour and fodder quality parameters viz., dry matter, crude protein, ammonical-N, acid detergent fibre, neutral detergent fibre and in vitro dry matter digestibility were compared with the silage prepared from maize and sorghum forage. Although, maize and sorghum silage exhibited superior silage quality, the silage prepared from hybrid napier harvested at 70 days + 2% jiggery was of sufficiently good quality as it exhibited acceptable light yellow colour, light acidic smell with pH, ammonical-N, dry matter, crude protein, acid detergent fibre, neutral detergent fibre content and in vitro dry matter digestibility.
Key words: Silage, BxN hybrid, dry matter, nutritional quality, ammonical-N