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Performance of Napier Hybrids Cultivars CO5 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. Purpureum schumach) and Sampoorna (Pennisetum pedicillatum × P. americanum) Harvested at Five Intervals
Weerathunga, D.; Udagama, D.; Campbell, S.; Barber, D.; Weerasinghe, P. Performance of the Napier Hybrids Cultivars CO-5 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. Purpureum schumach) and Sampoorna (Pennisetum pedicillatum × P. americanum) Harvested at Five Intervals. Grasses2023, 2, 156-167.
Weerathunga, D.; Udagama, D.; Campbell, S.; Barber, D.; Weerasinghe, P. Performance of the Napier Hybrids Cultivars CO-5 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. Purpureum schumach) and Sampoorna (Pennisetum pedicillatum × P. americanum) Harvested at Five Intervals. Grasses 2023, 2, 156-167.
Weerathunga, D.; Udagama, D.; Campbell, S.; Barber, D.; Weerasinghe, P. Performance of the Napier Hybrids Cultivars CO-5 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. Purpureum schumach) and Sampoorna (Pennisetum pedicillatum × P. americanum) Harvested at Five Intervals. Grasses2023, 2, 156-167.
Weerathunga, D.; Udagama, D.; Campbell, S.; Barber, D.; Weerasinghe, P. Performance of the Napier Hybrids Cultivars CO-5 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. Purpureum schumach) and Sampoorna (Pennisetum pedicillatum × P. americanum) Harvested at Five Intervals. Grasses 2023, 2, 156-167.
Abstract
Low pasture biomass production and fodder scarcity are among the major challenges affecting productivity of dairy cattle farms in Sri Lanka. As a potential solution to this, two Napier hybrid cultivars CO-5 and Sampoorna were recently introduced and a field experiment was conducted to evaluate their growth, dry matter production and nutritional composition during May to September 2020. Plant measurements and samples were collected at five harvest intervals (4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 weeks after planting), with the plant samples subjected to biomass and nutritional assessments. The number of tillers and leaf length differed (P=0.01) between the two cultivars at 4 weeks harvesting interval (HI) whilst number of leaves differed at 12 HI respectively. Dry matter yield increased (P=0.16) almost linearly whilst crude protein declined exponentially with CO-5 greater than Sampoorna (P=0.057; 9.3% vs 8.7%), with increasing harvesting intervals respectively. In-vitro Organic Matter Digestibility and In-vitro Metabolizable Energy contents were similar across weeks 4, 6 and 8 but then decreased. This study demonstrates that higher dry matter yields (12.54 t/ha) can be obtained by harvesting both cultivars at 12 HI, but from a nutritional perspective harvesting at 6 HI during Yala season of the year would be optimum for farmers.
Biology and Life Sciences, Agricultural Science and Agronomy
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
