Experts share tips on year-round production of green fodder

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 30

Green fodder is the main stay of animal health and their production is the backbone of dairy industry. Dairy animals obtain nutrients, viz., energy, protein, fibre, minerals, vitamins and water from the forages for the maintenance of their body and optimum performance and hence year-round production of fodder becomes necessary.

“Feeding green fodders to the animals helps to keep them healthy, reduce micronutrient deficiencies and increase milk production. Since, feeding alone accounts for 60-70 per cent of the total cost of milk production, availability of adequate nutritious fodder coming from cheaper sources assumes greater importance,” said Maninder Kaur from Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics.

Hence, by providing sufficient quantities of fodder instead of costly concentrates and feeds to the milch animals, the cost of milk production can be considerably reduced.

For healthy growth and to get more and cheap milk, each animal requires 40-50 kg green fodder per day. But there is a lean period of two months in Punjab i.e., May-June and Nov-Dec, when green fodder is not enough to feed animals. On the contrary, there are two months when surplus fodder is available i.e., Feb-Mar and Aug-Sep. The surplus fodder can therefore be preserved as silage or hay to be used during the lean periods to meet the per day green fodder requirement of 40-50 kg per animal, added further Harpreet Kaur Oberoi and Devinderpal Singh from Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics.

Techniques farmers can adopt

Perennial Fodder

Napier-bajra is a perennial fodder and the crop once planted gives fodder for 2-3 years. It can be propagated vegetatively from root slips or stem cuttings. It yields most of the fodder between March and November and is dormant in winters. During winters, oats or senji can be sown to obtain green fodder. The crop planted in March will start giving fodder in May and fodder is available in lean period of May-June.

Multi-cut Fodder crops

Rabi season crops berseem, shaftal, lucerne and ryegrass and kharif season crops sorghum and guinea grass are multi-cut fodder crops.

Single-cut fodder crops

Kharif crops- Maize, sorghum, bajra, guara and cowpea and Rabi crops- Senji and oats are the single-cut crops. Sowing of these single-cut crops can provide fodder whole year.

Fodder in crop rotation

In Punjab, wheat-rice is the principle cropping rotation. After harvesting of wheat and before sowing of rice, there is a gap of 45-50 days in which fodder crops (bajra, maize, cowpea) could be sown to get fodder at the time of lean periods i.e., May-June or these fodder crops could be preserved as silage.

Multiple cropping system

In multiple cropping system, to get fodder at different times, fodder crops could be sown at different times. With proper irrigation facilities, farmer by adopting multiple cropping system of green fodder could get year-round fodder for his animals.