EFFECT OF FODDER BASED INTERCROPPING SYSTEMS ON QUALITY OF FODDER
BRAJKISHOR PRAJAPATI *, SAPANA TIWARI AND KEWALANAND
Department of Agronomy
College of Agriculture, GBPUA&T, Pantnagar-263145, India
*(e-mail : brajkishorprajapati1@gmail.com)
(Received : 3 January 2018; Accepted : 20 March 2018)
SUMMARY
The experiment was conducted at sorghum Agronomy block of Instructional Dairy Farm, Nagla, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand (India) during kharif seasons of 2015 and 2016 to evaluate fodder based intercropping systems for various quality and nutritive traits of fodder. Ten treatments as detailed in materials and methods section were tested in three replications following randomized block design. Among quality traits, content of dry matter was significantly more in fodder from sweet sorghum+cowpea compared to remaining intercropping systems except sweet sorghum+ricebean and maize+cowpea. Other quality parameters viz. crude protein and digestible dry matter content were highest in fodder of maize+cowpea intercropping system. The fodder obtained from pearl millet+phillepsara contained higher NDF and hemicellulose, from sweet sorghgum+ phillepsara contained higher ADF. The fodder obtained from sweet sorghum+cowpea contained higher dry matter intake, cell content, total digestible nutrient, relative feed value, net energy and mineral content. Thus sweet sorghum+cowpea and maize+cowpea intercropping systems were best to get higher quality fodder during Kharif season.
Key words: Cell content, crude protein content, hemicellulose, maize, sorghum