Determination of Feed Yield and Quality Parameters of Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L. (Pers.)) Populations Collected from Natural Flora

Abstract

A two-year study (2020–2021) was conducted in the Erzurum province to investigate the feed quality parameters of 102 genotypes of Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) collected from different locations in natural flora. Two control cultivars were also examined in this study, namely Coastal and Survivor. Parameters such as the fresh herbage weight, dry herbage weight, crude protein (CP) ratio, acid detergent fiber (ADF) ratio, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) ratio, and relative feed values (RFVs) were analyzed. In the first year of this study, Bermudagrass populations collected from natural flora were rooted in pots under greenhouse conditions. In the second year, the rooted plants were transplanted into experimental fields at the Atatürk University Plant Production Implementation and Research Center. The present genotypes generally had superior crude protein, ADF, NDF ratios, and relative feed values (RFVs) than the control cultivar. The fresh herbage weights ranged from 9.20 to 95.37 g per plant, while the dry herbage weights varied from 5.22 to 45.24 g per plant. The findings of this study showed that most of the genotypes collected from natural flora had superior feed quality parameters to the control genotypes.