Row Arrangements of Maize and Soybean Intercrop on Silage Quality and Grain Yield

Vanderson Vieira Batista,Pedro Valério Dutra De Moraes,Lucas Link,Cleverson Luiz Giacomel,Karine Fuschter Oligini,Paulo Fernando Adami

doi:10.5539/jas.v11n2p286

Abstract

The success of maize + soybean intercrop depends on the plant arrangement. An experiment was carried out to evaluate different row arrangements on intercrop forage yield, silage quality and maize grain yield in relation to maize as a sole crop. The experiment was set up with a randomized complete block design with eight row arrangements between maize and Soybean. Maize biomass yield among crop arrangements were similar, although, lower than the maize sole crop. On the other hand, these treatments showed higher soybean biomass yield, which in turn increased silage crude protein and crude protein yield per unit area. Maize thousand grain weight, grain yield per plant and per area was affected by the intercrop arrangements. The use of two corn rows + two soybean rows (2M+2S-30 cm) and four corn rows + four soybean rows (4M+4S-30 cm) showed higher crude protein yield per area associated with similar maize grain yield in relation to the sole maize crop. In conclusion, alternating four maize rows with four soybean rows was the optimum row ratio in maize + soybean intercrop, though this needs to be further confirmed by more trials.

Highlights

Maize and soybean are the most common grain crops in Brazil
Maize hybrid 2B533 is recommended both for silage and grain production. It presents medium-sized plants, high grain yield, progressively responds to technology, presents high grain participation in dry matter, high total digestible nutrients (TDN), high digestibility and low neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and is recommended for whole plant or wet grain silage or grain product (Dow Agrosciences, 2018)
These results, combined with the analysis of the “t” test, show that soybean intercropped with maize did not affect Final stand of maize plants (FMP) values, since maize monocrop showed similar FMP when compared to the intercropping treatments (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Maize and soybean are the most common grain crops in Brazil. Maize is the most used forage crop worldwide due to its many advantages such as high dry matter yield, high energy content, consistent-palatable feed, reduced total feed cost, rapid harvest and storability potential (Lempp et al, 2000), its low crude protein content may play a limitation on its use (Lempp et al, 2000; Evangelista et al, 2005; Oliveira et al, 2017).Soybean appears to be an option due to its great adaptability, yield potential and its high crude protein content (Kananji et al, 2013); fresh forage yield from soybean is low compared to maize, one of the major limitations to increase the use of soybeans for silage is the fact that when ensiled alone, it shows a bad fermentation process. According to Stella et al (2016), maize silage presents 73 g kg-1 of crude protein and this value increased to 105 and 136 g kg-1 with the addition of 25 and 50% of soybean biomass into the silage, respectively. In this way, the use of soybean silage represents an alternative for increasing the protein content of the diet, thereby reducing production costs through reduced need for supplementation with protein concentrate

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Conclusion