Fodder value of sweet sorghum

Abstract

Sweet sorghum is used for silage, grass flour, hay and grain haylage, green fertilizing and grazing. Now the Agricultural Research Center ‘Donskoy’ developing varieties and hybrids of sweet sorghum for forage with reduced amount of fiber and increased amount of protein in dry matter of green chop. The purpose of the work is to give economic-and-biological characteristics and evaluation of economic efficiency of cultivation of sorghum varieties and hybrids developed in ARC ‘Donskoy’, and to study nutritional value of sorghum forage. The researches were carried out in ARC ‘Donskoy’ in 2014-2016. The objects of the study were three varieties ‘Zernogradsky Yantar’, ‘Debyut’ and ‘Listvenit’, a new variety ‘SV-44’ and three hybrids of grain sorghum ‘Zersil’, ‘Elisey’ and ‘Start’. The green chop productivity of the varieties ranged from 38 to 49 t/ha, the green chop productivity of the hybrids ranged from 51 to 58 t/ha. The content of dry matter in the green chop of the varieties and hybrids varied from 32.6 to 35.5%, the content of raw protein varied from 7.2 to 7.7%, the content of fiber varied from 37.7 to 39.6%.Green chop for silage obtained from sweet sorghum possesses highest nutritional value at swine feeding. Dry matter of green chop obtained from the variety ‘Debyut’ and the hybrid ‘Start’ possessed the largest content of fodder units (122.4 kg and 122.3 kg respectively) and exchangeable energy (1327 MJ and 1336 MJ respectively). All the varieties and hybrids of sweet sorghum meet the requirements in amount of digestible protein (105-110 g). The largest amount of digestible protein per fodder unit was seen in green chop of the hybrids ‘Elisey’ and ‘Start’ (138 g and 135 g respectively).