Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment

Plant density and tillage effects on forage corn quality

Author(s):

Ali Baghdadi ¹, Ridzwan A. Halim ¹*, Majid Majidian ², Wan Noordin Wan Daud ¹, Izham Ahmad ¹

Recieved Date: 2012-01-19, Accepted Date: 2012-05-03

Abstract:

Plant density and tillage method are two factors that influence production of forage corn. A field experiment was conducted in the summer of 2010 in northern Iran to evaluate the response of nutritive quality of forage corn to plant densities and different tillage methods. The experiment used a split-plot design with tillage as the main plot in three replications and plant density as the subplots within each tillage method. The plant density treatments were 90,000, 110,000 and 130,000 plants per hectare and different tillage methods include conventional tillage (CT), reduced tillage (RT), minimum tillage (MT) and no-tillage (NT). Increasing plant density reduced the nutritive quality of forage corn. The CP (crude protein) declined from 125 to 99 g kg^-1 from the lowest to the highest plant density. Acid detergent fiber (ADF) increased from 156.9 to 197.5 g kg^-1 from the lowest to the highest plant density. Dry matter digestibility (DMD) decreased from 689.9 to 655.0 g kg^-1 from lowest to highest plant density. The reduction in forage quality with increasing plant density is attributed to the decline in leaf to stem ratio as well as reduced cob to whole plant ratio with increasing plant density. There was a significant interaction between plant density and tillage on CP concentration, where at the highest plant density, CP was significantly lower in the NT treatment compared to other tillage methods. In contrast to nutritive quality, dry matter yields increased from 14.3 to 16.7 t ha^-1 with increasing plant density and the choice of optimum plant density should take into consideration the opposite trends. Tillage methods showed no significant effects on the nutritive value of forage corn.

Keywords:

Plant density, forage corn, nutritive quality, tillage methods

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Journal: Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment
Year: 2012
Volume: 10
Issue: 2
Category: Agriculture
Pages: 366-370

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