DIGVIJAY SINGH, PUMMY KUMARI AND P. K. PANDEY
National Dairy Development Board, Anand-38800 (Gujarat), India
Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding. G. B. P. U. A. & T., Pantnagar-263145, (Uttarakhand), India
*(e-mail: dsingh@nddb.coop)
(Received: 12 November 2025; Accepted: 10 December 2025)
SUMMARY
Sorghum is an important fodder crop in India that produces high biomass yield in diverse agro-climatic conditions. A study was conducted during Kharif 2021 for comparative analysis of nineteen sorghum cultivars belonging to single-cut fodder, multi-cut fodder and sweet sorghum type for silage making potential. Significant differences were observed amongst sorghum cultivars for dry matter (%) in fodder before and after ensiling, °brix content, pH, silage yield, dry matter yield, plant height, number of leaves/plant, length of leaves, width of leaves, L:S and fresh biomass weight/plant. On the basis of group mean values, many parameters viz. plant height, fresh biomass weight/plant and dry matter accumulation/plant were observed to be higher in single-cut type fodder cultivars as compared to sweet sorghum and multi-cut fodder type cultivars. Non-significant differences were observed amongst sorghum cultivars for leaf area index, dry matter accumulation/ plant (g) and plant population (lakh/ha), however, the differences ranged between 0.59-1.23, 62.00- 170.00 and 0.23-0.37, respectively. All the sorghum cultivars showed potential to produce good quality of silage as pH in silage and °brix content in stem juices were observed to be in highly desirable range viz. 3.50-4.23 and 9.40-16.47%, respectively. Silage and dry matter yields were recorded to be significantly higher in cultivars HJ 541 (40.23 t/ha) and CSV 44F (13.97 t/ha), respectively. Single-cut sorghum cultivars, HJ 541 and CSV 44F out yielded check cultivar CSV 21F by 34.48% and 30.83% for silage yield and; 27.36% and 34.43% for dry matter yield, respectively. Significantly lowest silage yield (21.68 t/ha) and dry matter yield (6.82 t/ha) were recorded in cultivar CSV 40F. During this study, green fodder of nineteen cultivars belonging to single-cut fodder, multi-cut fodder and sweet sorghum types harvested at ninety days stage was found suitable for silage making, however, few cultivars like HJ 541, CSV 44F, CSV 35F and Madhura 2 were found to be most suitable cultivars for obtaining high silage yields (>35 t/ha) during kharif season under Central Gujarat conditions.
Key words: Fodder sorghum, sweet sorghum, single-cut, multi-cut, silage, pH, °brix and dry matter yield