Persistency of Common Fodder Grasses under Melia Azedarach Based Silvipastoral System
An experiment was conducted from July 2004 to October 2005 at IAAS Livestock Farm, Rampur under 14 years old Melia azedarach tree(maintained 1200 stems/ha) shade to study the dried weight yield potentiality of common fodder grasses, grown with tropical legumes and their persistency. A split Plot Design (SPD) was employed with three replications with three different canopy levels (trees pruned at 3m, 4m and 5m from the ground and one open) as main plots and four forage mixtures as subplots. Shade level was maintained by pruning the trees throughout the experiment. The shade level at the initial phase was measured by LUX-101 Lux Meter (Model No.44147) at August, 2004 and was standardized for low (72%irradiance to open) medium (64%irradiance to open) and heavy (58 % irradiance to open). Number of tillers/plant in fodder grasses decreased as the shade level increased in all the harvests whereas blue panic always had the highest number of tillers/plant (P0.05) Furthermore, highest cumulative dried weight yield was in open condition (63.29 t/ha) followed by low shade 26.50 t/ha (42% to that of open t/ha) whilst, the cumulative dried weight yield in medium shade remained 27% and it was only 21% in heavy shade to that of open. It can be concluded that Panicum antidotale can be grown in summer under high density plantations at least for two harvests. The the selection of forage species is more important criterion of silvipastoral work than the maintenance of shade level.
