Yield, Water Use Efficiency and Silage Feeding Value of Sorghum Cultivars as Affected by Planting Date and Planting Method

Congregation of sorghum's tardy primary growth, endangered water resources, and unavoidable planting postponement in the second cropping consisted of the mainframe to evaluate yield, water use efficiency (WUE), and feed value of silage in a 2-yr experiment under four planting dates (July-1st, July-11th, July-23rd, August-1st), three planting methods (direct planting, seed hydropriming, transplanting), and two cultivars (Pegah, Speedfeed). Results showed that lagged planting reduced silage neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), ash, and dry-matter yield (DMY); Contrarily, increased WUE, gas production (GP), metabolizable energy (ME), net energy for lactation (NEL), relative feed value (RFV), crude protein (CP), organic matter digestibility (OMD), digestible dry matter (DDM), dry matter intake (DMI) and lactic acid. Hydropriming produced uttermost DMY, WUE, CP, and ash; Transplanting maximized NDF and ADF; Direct seeding augmented GP, ME, OMD, NEL, RFV, DDM, and DMI. Pegah produced the utmost GP, ME, NEL, RFV, OMD, DDM, and DMI. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed delayed seeding and direct planting reduced yield and increased the nutritive aspect of silage; furthermore, biplot results acknowledged ash and RFV as the most effective participant in yield and quality, respectively. Overall, the combination of hydropriming and cultivar Pegah was the superior treatment for silage production.