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Prospects of breeding sorghum, pearl millet and pigeonpea for high forage yield and quality

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/5842/
 
Title Prospects of breeding sorghum, pearl millet and pigeonpea for high forage yield and quality
 
Creator Rai, K N
Reddy, B V S
Saxena, K B
Gowda, C L L
 
Subject Millets
Pigeonpea
Sorghum
 
Description Sorghum, pearl millet and pigeonpea are major warm-season dryland crops adapted to and grown primarily for grain production in the semi-arid tropical regions of Asia and Africa. With the increasing demand for livestock products and a realization of the impact of livestock in improving rural livelihoods, the value of forage (both green forage and stover) has considerably increased in recent years. Both sorghum and pearl millet are high water-use-efficient crops and belong to C4 species with high photosynthetic efficiency and dry matter accumulation rates. Based on the mean performance of several varieties at common test locations in the All India trials, higher green fodder yields were obtained for sorghum (32.7 t/ha) and pearl millet (37.6 t/ha) than for maize (30.9 t/ha). Both sorghum and pearl millet produce good quality forage, with crude protein in pearl millet (8.7 %) being higher than those in sorghum (6.0%) and maize (5.5%). Pigeonpea is a perennial and bushy plant with still higher green forage yield (40.6 t/ha) and crude protein content (23.7%). Several other forage quality traits have been identified in these crops. With the large genetic variability identified in the germplasm and improved breeding materials, opportunities exist to develop forage cultivars with high forage yield and quality, and improved adaptation to diverse agro-ecological environments.
 
Date 2004
 
Type Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/5842/1/Prospects_of_breeding_ICSC_2004.pdf
Rai, K N and Reddy, B V S and Saxena, K B and Gowda, C L L (2004) Prospects of breeding sorghum, pearl millet and pigeonpea for high forage yield and quality. In: 4th International Crop Science Congress, 26 Sept -1 Oct 2004, Brisbane, Australia.