Tekalegn Yirgu1*, Solomon Mengistu2, Fekede Feyisa3, and Umma Hany4
1Debre-Zeit Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box, 32, Bishoftu, Ethiopia; 2Holetta Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box, 31, Holetta, Ethiopia; 3Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, P. O. Box 2003 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and 4Dept. of Agriculture, Rabindra Maitree University, Bangladesh.
*Correspondence: tekalegny@gmail.com (Tekalegn Yirgu, Animal Feeds and Nutrition Researcher-II, Debre-Zeit Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box, 32, Bishoftu, Ethiopia).
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ABSTRACT
The study was conducted at Agricultural Research Centre with the objective of identifying the best-performing perennial grass species under supplemental irrigation and advising the promising cultivated fodder grass for smallholder livestock producers. Randomized Complete Block Design of six perennial grass species with three replications was employed. The six perennial grass species used were T1 (Brachiaria mutica_18659), T2 (Cynodon aethiopicus), T3 (Pennisetum sphacelatum), T4 (Brachiaria decumbense), T5 (Chloris gayana cv. Masaba), and T6 (Brachiaria mutica_6964). The result revealed that agronomic performance of cover, vigor, and height was varied (P<0.001) among perennial grass species. Furthermore, effects of cover (P<0.05), vigor (P<0.05) and height (P<0.001), and dry matter contents (P<0.05) of perennial species over years were found. The dry matter yields and contents of P. sphacelatum (22.85 ton ha-1 and 41.7%) followed by C. aethiopicus (12.53 ton ha-1 and 40.6%) of perennial grass species performed better (P<0.001) than others. The highest (P<0.001) dry matter yield (20.3 ton ha-1) was obtained during the second year of harvest than the first (12.65 ton ha-1) and third (11.36 ton ha-1) year harvests. Similarly, the highest (P<0.001) dry matter percent of the perennial grass species was also found during the second year harvest (50.1%) than the first (25.8%) and third (40.0%) year harvests. The lowest dry matter yield was recorded by C. gayana at the first year (8.5 ton ha-1) and third year (8 ton ha-1) harvests. Likewise, B. mutica_18659 provided the lowest dry matter yield (12.9 tons ha-1) during the second harvest period. Hence, smallholder farmers can preferably be advised to use P. sphacelatum and C. aethiopicus perennial grass fodder crops resources under supplemental irrigation.
Keywords: Fodder, Grasses, Irrigation, Livestock, Perennial, Performance, Species, and Yield.
Citation: Yirgu T, Mengistu S, Feyisa F. and Hany U. (2023). Performance of perennial grass species under supplemental irrigation. Am. J. Pure Appl. Sci., 5(2), 20-27. https://doi.org/10.34104/ajpab.023.020027
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