Survey work carried out in the early stages of the project showed that farmers preferred to grow local varieties of sorghum in the belief that the quality and quantity of stover produced was better than with varieties selected for bird resistance.
Agronomic trials showed that there was no clear difference in stover-yield between resistant and non-resistant varieties and there appeared to be no difference in nutritive value of Stover from bird resistant and non-resistant varieties, provided the ratios of leaf-plus-sheath stem were comparable. Grain yields were higher for the bird resistant sorghums. The trials also confirmed that the farmers' practice of stripping leaves to feed to livestock did not affect grain yields at harvest.
Animal feeding experiments demonstrated that stover intake increased when animals were offered in excess (approx 50%) of intake to allow selection of the more nutritious components. Chopping stover also increased the intake of stover by small ruminants but had a negative effect in cattle. In an experiment with cattle supplementation of long stover with cotton seed cake (16 or 32 g DM/kg LW 0.75/day) improved growth rate. Supplementation at the lower level increased intake relative to the unsupplemented animals but doubling the amount of supplementary cottonseed cake reduced intake. |
