Influence of Seed Rates and Nitrogen Levels on Yield, Nutrient Uptake and Economics of Fodder Sweet Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.)

Influence of Seed Rates and Nitrogen Levels on Yield, Nutrient Uptake and Economics of Fodder Sweet Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.)

Abdulgani Nabooji^* , Keshavaiah, K. V , Shekara, B. G , D. Shobha , Fathima, P. S

Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, V. C. Farm, Zonal Agricultural Research Station, Mandya, Karnataka, India

Corresponding Author Email: azeemdeccan123@gmail.com

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.53709/ CHE.2021.v02i04.036

Abstract

Keywords

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Introduction

Livestock has been the agriculture’s most economically important sub sector. It contributes 25 per cent to the total agricultural income. With only 2.5 per cent of the world’s geographical area, India supports 15 per cent of the world’s livestock population. Since the beginning of 1980, milk production has shown an average compound annual growth rate of almost 4.5 per cent [1-3]. Production efficiency of the Indian livestock in most of the regions is very low. This offers considerable scope for raising the productivity of Indian livestock. The low productivity is mainly due to inadequate supply of quality feeds and fodders. Balanced nutrition through feed and fodder to livestock is available in selected milk shed areas of the country where intensive fodder production systems are practiced. Rest of the farming community maintains uneconomic large herds on grazing supplemented with stall feeding.

Livestock population of India is around 529.7 million heads and supports 55, 16, 20 and 5 per cent of world’s buffalo, cattle, goat and sheep population, respectively (Anon., 2012) and is expected to grow at the rate of 1.23 per cent in the coming years. To meet this challenge, concerted efforts are to be made for reducing the large gap between demand and supply of the fodder in the country. To meet the current level of livestock production and its annual growth in population, the deficit has to be met from either increasing productivity, increasing land area under fodder cultivation or through import. In animal feed supply, cereals have major role and four major cereals viz., maize, barley, sorghum and pearl millet account for about 44 per cent of the total cereals fodder production. “At present, the country faces net deficit of 61.1 per cent green fodder and 21.9 per cent dry fodder and indicates that the green forage supply has to grow at 3.2 per cent to meet the deficit” [4-6].

In India, sweet sorghum shares about 0.002 per cent area out of total sorghum area. Sweet sorghum is being developed for the simultaneous production of grain and sweet stalk with sweet juicy stems, used for forage and silage or to produce syrup. People in southern Africa often chew the juicy stems as a snack. It has been investigated as a potential source of fermentable sugars for fuel ethanol production. Its bagasse is more suitable for paper pulp and is used to manufacture Kraft paper, newsprint and fiber board. Sweet sorghum bagasse has higher biological value and can be used as animal feed or to co-generate heat and power [7]. Sweet sorghum crop produces 35-50 t ha^-1 stalk and 1.5-2.5 t ha^-1 grain yield [8]. It has better digestibility than fodder sorghum [9]. The fodder of sweet sorghum is rich source of nutrients [10]. Stalk juice of sweet sorghum contains relatively higher amount of reducing sugars than sugarcane juice impeding crystallization of sugar, therefore, sweet sorghum is considered as a multipurpose industrial crop.

As far as Karnataka state is concerned, it is a home for 28.6 million heads of livestock with only 3.5 per cent of the cultivated area under fodder crops. The annual fodder requirement of the state is 122 million tons of green fodder and 24 million tons of dry fodder, where the present production is 85 and 15 million tons of green and dry fodder, respectively, with a deficit of 46 million tons of total fodder requirement [11]. Thus, state is not only in short of quantity but quality fodder also. As a result, in general livestock suffers continuously with malnutrition round the year resulting in their production capacity at sub-optimum level. It is therefore, very essential to maximize quality and forage production per unit area and time. Cereal fodders and crop residues are major sources of forage but the nutritive value of these fodders is not adequate to achieve higher milk production.

Availability of green forage to animals is the key to success of dairy enterprises and it is difficult to maintain the health and milk production of the livestock without supply of the green fodder. Green fodder not only helps for easy digestion but, also abundant quantity of Vitamin-A and important minerals like Ca and Fe in addition to energy for the animals and another dimension is to reduce the cost of milk production. It is established beyond doubt that raising the animals mostly on green forages reduces the cost by 40 per cent in contrast to that of 70 per cent when they are raised on a coarser dry fodder supplemented with costly grain feeds or concentrates [12-13]. Therefore, efforts to accelerate the production potential of good quality forages are of paramount importance to ascertain the adequate supply of green fodder. It will help to improve the economy of dairy farming, thereby, making the white revolution a grand success.

Material and Methods

The field experiment was conducted at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, V. C. Farm, and Mandya, which falls under Southern Dry Zone of Karnataka (Zone-VI). The station is situated between 12º45‘ N latitude, 76º 45‘ E longitude and at an altitude of 695 meters above Mean Sea Level (MSL). Composite soil samples were collected from 0-15 cm depth from the experimental area before experimentation. The composite soil samples of about 250 g was air dried and passed through 2.0 mm sieve and used for physical and chemical analysis as per standard procedures. The soil was neutral in pH (7.34) and high in organic carbon content (1.08 per cent) with electrical conductivity of 0.26 dSm^-1. The soil had medium available nitrogen (330 kg ha^-1), medium phosphorus (31 kg ha^-1) and medium available potassium (172 kg ha^-1). The total normal rainfall for crop growth period (Rabi, 2016) was 226.32 mm. The rainfall received was more than normal rainfall in the month of October (149.8 mm) as against the actual rainfall of 65.0 mm. The normal mean monthly maximum temperature varied between 31.2 ºC in the month of February to 27.2 ºC in the month of December. The mean monthly minimum temperature varied from 19.3 ºC during October 2016 to 14.4 ºC during January2017. The highest mean maximum relative humidity was recorded during October (90 %). The mean minimum relative humidity was recorded during October (59 %). The mean daily bright sunshine varied between 8.7 hours during February and 4.6 hours in the month of December.

Treatments details

    The treatments of the experiment consisted of three levels of seed rate and three nitrogen levels. The details of treatments and their combinations are as follows.

Seed Rates (kg ha-1)                                              Nitrogen Levels (kg ha-1)

S1= 50 kg ha-1                                                        N1 = 75% RDN

S2= 40 kg ha-1                                                        N2 = 100% RDN

S3= 30 kg ha-1                                                         N3 = 125% RDN

Where, RDN = Recommended dose of nitrogen

Details of treatment combinations

T₁= S₁N₁      T₂= S₁N₂        T₃= S₁N₃

T₄= S₂N₁      T₅= S₂N₂      T₆= S₂N₃

T₇= S₃N₁      T₈= S₃N₂      T₉=S₃N₃

The experiment was laid out with plot size of 3m length and 4 m width with a total area of 12 m² for each plot.

Gross plot        : 3 m x 4 m

Net plot           : 2.7 m x 3.4 m

Spacing           :  Row to row 30 cm

Green fodder yield and Total dry matter production

Green fodder yield from net plot (kg plot^-1) was obtained after harvest of the crop and it was converted in to hectare and expressed in tons per hectare. Whereas The total dry matter production was recorded at harvest from five 76Yrandomly selected plants in each plot. These were oven dried at 60 ⁰C to attain constant weight and average dry weight was calculated (kg plot^-1) and converted to hectare basis and expressed in tons per hectare.

Nitrogen uptake by crop

Nitrogen content was estimated by modified micro-kjeldhal’s method as outlined by Jackson (1967) and expressed in percentage. Nitrogen uptake (kg ha^-1) by crop was calculated for each treatment separately using the following formula.

“Nitrogen uptake (kg/ha) =” “Nitrogen concentration (%)” / “100” ” ×Biomass (kg/ha)”

 Economics

The cost of cultivation was worked out treatment wise. The price of the inputs that was prevailing at the time of their use and selling price for green fodder as prevailed in the market was considered. Gross returns were computed considering the existing market price of the output. Whereas the net returns per hectare were calculated by deducting the cost of cultivation per hectare from the gross returns per hectare. However Benefit-cost ratio was worked out for different treatments by dividing the gross returns with the cost of cultivation of the respective treatments.

Results and discussion

Yield attributes

Among the seed rate of 40 kg ha^-1 recorded significantly higher mean green fodder and dry matter yield (42.82 and 6.18 t ha^-1, respectively). However, butwas found to be on par with seed rate of 50 kg ha^-1 (41.93 and 5.85 t ha^-1, respectively). Significantly lower mean green fodder and dry matter yield was recorded with seed rate of 30 kg ha^-1 (39.02 and 5.30 t ha^-1, respectively) and is presented in table 1 and 2. With respect to nitrogen levels, application of 125 per cent of RDN recorded significantly higher mean green fodder and dry matter yield (45.85 and 6.64 t ha^-1, respectively) over 75 per cent of RDN (37.67 and 5.05 t ha^-1, respectively) but was found to be on par with 100 per cent of RDN (40.24 and 5.63 t ha^-1, respectively). This may be mainly attributed to improved growth and yield parameters, viz., plant height, leaf area, leaf stem ratio and the beneficial effects of nitrogen on cell division and elongation, formation of nucleotides and Co-enzymes which resulted in increased meristematic activity and photosynthetic area and hence more production and accumulation of photosynthates, yielding higher green fodder and dry matter. These results are in conformity with the findings of Kuldeep Kumar (2007).

Nutrient uptake

Significantly higher mean nitrogen uptake at 30 DAS and at harvest was recorded with seed rate of 40 kg ha^-1 (70.11 and 87.22 kg ha^-1, respectively). However, but was on par with seed rate of 50 kg ha^-1 (65.63 and 81.57 kg ha^-1, respectively). Significantly lower mean nitrogen uptake recorded by seed rate of 30 kg ha^-1 (58.70 and 72.59 kg ha^-1, respectively) and is depicted in table 3 and 4. Similarly application of 125 per cent of RDN recorded significantly highernitrogen uptake at 30 DAS and at harvest (82.10 and 101.45 kg ha^-1, respectively) over 75 per cent of RDN (50.77 and 62.13 kg ha^-1, respectively) but was on par with 100 per cent of RDN (61.57 and 77.80 kg ha^-1, respectively). The higher nitrogen uptake at seed rate of 40 kg ha^-1 was mainly due to reduced competition within the intra row spacing as compared to higher seed rate. The findings of [14] confirmed these results. Increased nitrogen application increases nitrogen uptake in plant more availability of nitrogen. These results are in conformity with the findings of [15-16].

Economics

The data on economics analysis viz., gross returns, net returns and B:C ratio of fodder sweet sorghum production as influenced by seed rates and nitrogen levels are presented and discussed (Table 5). Higher gross returns (Rs. 38,538 ha^-1), net returns (Rs. 18,838 ha^-1) and B:C ratio (1.95) was obtained with the seed rate of 40 kg ha^-1 as compared to seed rate of 50 kg ha^-1 (Rs.37,737 ha^-1, 17,703.67 ha^-1 and 1.88, respectively) and 30 kg ha^-1 (Rs. 35,124 ha^-1, 15,890.67 ha^-1 and 1.79, respectively). Among nitrogen levels, application of 125 per cent of RDN recorded significantly higher gross returns (Rs. 41,271 ha^-1), net returns (Rs. 21,471 ha^-1) and B:C ratio (2.12) as compared to 100 per cent of RDN (Rs. 36,222 ha^-1, Rs. 16,855 and 1.82, respectively) and 75 per cent of RDN (Rs. 33,906 ha^-1, Rs. 14,106 and 1.67, respectively). This was mainly due to higher green forage yield and less cost of production as compared to 30 kg seeds per hectare. These results are in conformity with the findings of [17-20].

Conclusion

Seed rate of 40 kg ha^-1 recorded significantly higher total green fodder (42.82 t
ha^-1) and dry matter yield (6.18 t ha^-1) of fodder sweet sorghum compared to seed rate of 30 kg ha^-1. However, it was found to be on par with 50 kg ha^-1 seed rate. Similar trend followed in nutrient uptake. Higher gross returns (Rs. 38,538 ha^-1), net returns (Rs. 18,838 ha^-1) and B:C ratio (1.95) was obtained with the seed rate of 40 kg ha^-1 as compared to seed rate of 50 kg ha^-1 and 30 kg ha^-1. Among nitrogen levels, application of 125 per cent of RDN recorded significantly higher gross returns (Rs. 41,271 ha^-1), net returns (Rs. 21,471 ha^-1) and B:C ratio (2.12) as compared to other nitrogen levels.

Note: Get all tables and formulas here…

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