Abstract
To investigate the changes in irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and some agronomic and nutritional characteristics of forage maize and sorghum cultivars (cvs) irrigated in a shallow soil, two maize and seven sorghum cvs were evaluated in rain-fed (NIR) and irrigated (IR) field conditions for a 3-year period. The experimental design was a randomized complete block in a split-plot arrangement. The irrigation increased plant height of forages whereas decreased metabolizable energy and relative feed values. There was an advantage for sorghum cvs over maize cvs regarding to agronomic and nutritional traits in a shallow soil, irrespective of irrigation. The IR-cvs had higher yield and nutritional quality compared to the NIR-cvs. The IWUE values of Jumbo, Grazer, Hayday, El Rey and Gozde cvs were higher than those of other sorghum cvs. The studied cvs, except for El Rey (the highest) and Rox (the lowest) had similar IWUE values. The plant heights and dry matter (DM), digestible DM (DDM) and crude protein (CP) yields of sorghum cvs were greater than those of maize cvs, except for Rox and Early sumac. When cvs classes were compared for the yields of DM, DDM and CP, the classes ranked in the following order: Rx-893 = Karadeniz Yildizi = Rox = Early Sumac ≤ Gözde = Grazer = Hayday = Jumbo = El Rey.
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