Effect of Nitrification Inhibitor and Cutting Heights on Degradability of Pearl Millet

Daniel Staciarini Corrêa,Adesvaldo José E Silva-Junior,Roberto Toledo Magalhães,Aldi Fernandes De Souza França,Emmanuel Arnhold,Leonardo Guimarães Oliveira

doi:10.5539/jas.v9n8p106

Daniel Staciarini Corrêa, Adesvaldo José E Silva-Junior + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/jas.v9n8p106

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Abstract

Pearl millet crop has been increasingly growing in Brazilian Savanna and it is already being used as cover crop between annual crops. The plant has great forage potential, besides being a nutrient recycling plant due to its peculiar root system. This study was developed in order to assess the pearl millet nutritional value when submitted to nitrogen fertilizer. It was evaluated the effect of nitrogen fertilizer (ammonium sulfate nitrate) treated with the nitrification inhibitor 3,4-dimethyl pyrazole phosphate (DMPP) on the ruminal degradability of two pearl millets’ cultivars, under four nitrogen fertilization levels (0, 45, 90 and 180 kg ha-1) and pre-cutting heights (0.70, 0.80 and 0.90 m). The experimental design was a randomized block design in a factorial 3 × 4 (3 cutting heights × 4 nitrogen doses) with three replications. Data were submitted to analysis of variance and means were compared by Tukey test at 5% probability. The DMPP treated Nitrogen, in high doses, increased the dry matter, crude protein and neutral detergent insoluble fiber degradability in pearl millet handled at 0.90 m. The combination of fertilization with 45 or 90 kg ha-1 of nitrogen treated with DMPP, with the management of millet at 0.70 or 0.80 m did not favored the forage nutritional quality, indicating that in these treatments, the ratio between the availability of nitrogen in ammonium and nitrate forms may have been detrimental to the plants.

Highlights

Given the great economic importance of bovine farming for the State of Goiás, the pressure for higher productivity allied with environmental conservation and the high impact that nitrogen fertilization causes on these factors, it becomes very important to have the information on the response of forage plants, in terms of nutritional value, face to the application of nitrogen fertilizers
This paper aimed to evaluate the in situ degradability of Pearl millet (BRS 1501 and ADR 500) at three different heights in cutting regime, submitted to four doses of nitrogen treated with nitrification inhibitor (3,4-dimethyl pyrazole phosphate - DMPP)
The results suggest, through potential degradability, that if the incubation time would have been elongated, the cultivars might have presented higher effective degradability, at the nitrogen doses and heights analyzed

Summary

Introduction

Given the great economic importance of bovine farming for the State of Goiás, the pressure for higher productivity allied with environmental conservation and the high impact that nitrogen fertilization causes on these factors (increased production and risks to the environment), it becomes very important to have the information on the response of forage plants, in terms of nutritional value, face to the application of nitrogen fertilizers.The use of Pearl millet as forage is increasing in the last decades, due to its utility as soil coverage in the conventional and no-tillage cropping systems.The Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Given the great economic importance of bovine farming for the State of Goiás, the pressure for higher productivity allied with environmental conservation and the high impact that nitrogen fertilization causes on these factors (increased production and risks to the environment), it becomes very important to have the information on the response of forage plants, in terms of nutritional value, face to the application of nitrogen fertilizers. The use of Pearl millet as forage is increasing in the last decades, due to its utility as soil coverage in the conventional and no-tillage cropping systems. The evaluation of the nutritional value of feed must take into account, in addition to its chemical-bromatological composition, the ability of the animal to take advantage of the nutrients present in that food. Among the various techniques that can be used to determine the nutritional performance, the in situ technique stands out for its low cost and high correlation with in vivo experimentation (Nocek, 1988), besides allowing the evaluation of several foods at the same time, or the same food submitted to different treatments, and does not demand large quantity of animals and does not require special equipment such as metabolic cages or gas chambers (Brito et al, 2007)

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