Effect of cutting stage and sowing dates on forage yield and Quality of sorghum

Abstract

Afield trail was carried out on the city center of Al-Ramadi during 2009spring season in field fallow to one of afarmey . The main objective was to find out the effect of cutting off stages and sowing dates on forage yield and quality of sorghum .The layout of the experiment was a split plot design in a randomized complete block design with three replications , sowing date ( 15 march. 5and 25 April ) were taken as a main plots while , cutting off stage ( vegetative stage , 50% flowering and soft dough stage ) were taken as the sub plots , Results showed that highly significant were found for all characterizes, cutting off stage gave higher of each of plant height (206. 8 cm), leaf area (1217, 6cm2), green forage (26. 90 T.ha-1), the yield dray matter (21.10 T.ha-1), the yield of protein (2.17 T.ha-1), yield of fibers (6. 21T.ha-1)and percentage of crude fibers (34. 29%) while the sowing date of (5April) gave higher plant height (179.7cm), green forage yield (24.98 T.ha-1) , yield protein (2.14 T.ha-1), yield of fiber (5. 55,T.ha-1) There was a significant interaction between cutting stage and sowing dates for all characters .