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EFFECT OF FERTILIZER TYPE, AGRONOMIC SEASON AND HARVESTING AGE ON MORPHOLOGY DRY MATTR YIELD AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF BRCHIARIA HYDRID MULATO II GRASS AT FOGERA DISTRICT , ETHIOPIA.
Salew Baye1, Bimrew Asmare2 and Shigdaf Mekuraew3
1South Gonder Zone Fogera Woreda, Livestock office, fogera, Ethiopia.
2School of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Bahir Dar University, P O Box 5501, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
3United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences (UGSAS), 4-101 Koyama-Minami Tottori -shi, 680-8553, Tottori University, Japan; and Amhara Region Agricultural Research Institute, Andassa Livestock Research Center, P.O.Box, 27, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
This field experiment was conducted at Fogera District, South Gonder Zone with objectives to determine effects of fertilizer type, agronomic season and harvesting age on plant characteristics, yield and chemical compositionof Brachiaria hybrid mulato II grass. A factorial arrangement of three factors (3 fertilizer type: - cattle manure, chemical fertilizer and control, 3 agronomic season:-irrigation, rainfed and re-growth and 3 harvesting days:-45, 75 and 105days) with randomized complete block design containing three replications was employed in the current study. Morphological, data were collected from 7 plants grown in the middle rows. Forage biomass yield and chemical composition analysis was also collected from the plot 2kg samples had taken. All Samples were harvested at 45 day, 75 and 105 days of age and by three agronomic seasons (irrigation, rain fed and re-growth) weighed, dried and then ground to pass l mm sieve for forage nutritive value analysis. The collected data were subjected to general linear model analysis of variance procedures of SAS version 9.0. The application of fertilizer had a significant effect on the morphological characteristics, dry matter yield but not nutritive value except curde protein of Brachiaria hybrid mulato II grass as compared to without fertilizer. All morphological characteristics and most of the nutritive value parameters except LSR, CP, NDF and ADF were better at manure than chemical fertilizer. An increasing harvesting age, agronomic season(re-growth) and manure application result in increased nuber of tiler (NT),leave length(LL),inter node(IN),root length (RL), number of leave(NL),DMY, NDF,ADF and ADL content significantly (p<0.05) and plant height per plant(PHPP); Ash was increased at the harvesting age declined, irrigation |
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