GROWTH AND YIELD OF COOL SEASON FORAGE CROPS UNDER TARAI REAGION OF UTTARAKHAND
BRAJKISHOR PRAJAPATI*, AMIT BHATNAGAR AND KEWALANAND
Department of Agronomy
College of Agriculture, GBPUA&T, Pantnagar-263145, India
*(e-mail : brajkishorprajapati1@gmail.com)
(Received : 23 August 2016; Accepted : 27 September 2016)
SUMMARY
Field experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2012-2013 at Instructional Dairy Farm, G.B.P.U.A&T., Pantnagar (India) to evaluate performance of cool season forage crops/ varieties. The treatments consisted of seven crop varieties i.e. some imported varieties of these crops like Genie oat (Oat) and Baralfa IN (lucerne), Makkhan grass (rye grass) and Barduro (red clover) from Netherland have been tested in the present investigation with Mescavi variety of Berseem, UPO-212 variety of oat and local rye grass. The results showed that among oat varieties, crude protein per cent and dry matter digestibility was higher in genie oat than UPO-212. Crude protein per cent and dry matter digestibility was higher in makkan grass compared with local rye. Highest green forage yield, dry matter yield, crude protein yield and digestible dry matter yield was obtained from Baralfa IN (lucerne) and least from Barduro (red clover) than remaining leguminous crops. Among oat varieties, green forage yield, dry matter yield, crude protein yield and digestible dry matter yield was higher in the UPO-212 than genie oat while among rye grasses, these yields was higher in the makkhan grass than local rye.
Key words: Berseem, crude protein content, green forage yield