TITLE:
Potential of Sorghum as an Alternative to Corn Forage
AUTHORS:
Girma Getachew, Daniel H. Putnam, Christopher M. De Ben, Edward J. De Peters
KEYWORDS:
Sorghum, Climate Change, Drought Tolerance, Salinity
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.7 No.7,
May
20,
2016
ABSTRACT: Climate change, which
is currently characterized by increased atmospheric CO2, rising
temperature, and altered pattern of precipitation, is affecting agricultural
productivity. Rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns will
alter the ability to meet crop water requirements, water availability, crop
productivity, and costs of water access across the agricultural landscape.
Searching for alternative crops with lower water requirements increased yield
or organic matter per unit of water are important for agricultural
sustainability. Sorghum is one of the world’s important crops; a crop that is
adapted to a variety of agronomic and environmental conditions, particularly to
areas with low rainfall or limited access of irrigation water. Forage Sorghum is
able to produce comparable yield to corn suggesting that there is a potential
for Sorghum to replace corn in areas where water supply is limited. But, there
is a cost since corn silage, because of its high grain content, which is
typically superior in digestible energy content to Sorghum forages. There is
also a lack of information on the feeding value of Sorghum silages in high
producing dairy cows as well as strategies
that may be used for sorghum silage to replace a portion of the corn silage in
dairy cattle diets.