TITLE:
Studies on Biomass Yield, Morphological Characteristics and Nutritive Quality of Napier Cultivars under Two Different Geo-Topographic Conditions of Bangladesh
AUTHORS:
Nathu Ram Sarker, Mohammed Ahsan Habib, Dilruba Yeasmin, Farah Tabassum, Rurul Amin Mohammed
KEYWORDS:
Napier Cultivars, Barind, Forage Yield, Plant Morphology, Nutrient Contents
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.12 No.6,
June
22,
2021
ABSTRACT: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance
of Napier cultivars in terms of forage yield, plant morphology and nutrient
contents under two different agro-ecology and geo-topographic conditions. Three
Napier cultivars being conserved by Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute
(BLRI), namely-BLRI-Napier 1,
(BN-1), BLRI-Napier 3
(BN-3) and Merkeron (BN-5) were selected to cultivate in severe drought prone
areas (called Barind) and non-drought area at Savar (Modhupur terrace). Stem
cuttings were planted in rows apart from 70 cm and 35cm spacing between plants.
Data of 6 consecutive harvests from a period of approximately one year were
collected and analyzed statistically by “R” software. The results showed that
cultivar and location had a significant (P were significantly varied with
locations. BN-3 yielded the highest biomass (33.32 t/ha/harvest) at non-drought
location (42.98 t/ha/harvest). The highest plant height was obtained in BN-1
(171.2 cm) at non-drought location (174.6 cm). Number of tillers per hill ranged from 25.4
to 26.3 among cultivars (P > 0.05) and the highest tillers were found at
non-drought location (28.1 no). The best LSR was estimated from BN-5 (0.86) at
drought location (0.95). The proximate analysis showed that CP, ADF and NDF in
whole plant were varied significantly (P 0.05) among cultivars which
ranged from 15.80% to 17.13% and 13.10% to 14.58%, respectively. The highest CP
content in whole plant was obtained at non-drought location (11.89%), while the
lowest ash (10.57%) and NDF (52.71%) contents were obtained at the same
location. The highest CP contents in leaf were found at non-drought (15.03%)
and the lowest ash (9.86%) at the same location. The highest CP contents
(5.90%) in stem were found at non-drought location, while the lowest ash
(11.28%) and NDF (54.59%) contents were
obtained at the same location. Finally, the experiment
reveals the superiority in biomass yield and nutritional quality (in terms of CP content) with
the ranking orders of BN-3 > BN-1 > BN-5 and BN-1 > BN-3 > BN-5.
Therefore, it may be concluded that BN-1, BN-3, and BN-5 cultivars were well adapted in both
drought and non-drought conditions, although performance showed better in later
conditions.
However, in terms of forage yield and overall nutrient composition, the
performance of BN-3 was the best irrespective of locations.