The estimation of productivity and quality of alfalfa feed in the competitive variety testing

Abstract

Among perennial fodder legumes, alfalfa occupies a special place. This crop culture in many southern regions of the country makes it possible to yield full value bulky feeds with an average nutritional value of more than 10 MJ of exchange energy per 1 kg of dry matter and 16–17% or more raw protein content for the introduction of cost-effective livestock production. The purpose of the current study was to isolate new alfalfa varieties with a high productivity of green mass and seeds, good quality of feed highly adapted to various biotic and abiotic stress factors. In the competitive variety testing of alfalfa sown in 2015 the populations “Sin 18/95” (24.6 t/ha), “Sin 28/04” (26.0 t/ha) and “Sin 17/95” (26.4 t/ha) were identified according to green mass productivity. The same population were identified according to dry matter productivity (6.6–8.1 t/ha). The highest dry matter percentage were identified in the populations “Sin 17/95” and “Sin 28/04” (27.3%), “Sin 24/04” (27.6%) and “Sin 23/04” (27.7%). The best populations in raw protein content were “Sin 5/04” (20.45%) and “A-5” (20.48%). The synthetic populations “Sin 18/95” (0.44 t/ha of average yield), “Sin 17/95” (0.45 t/ha of average yield), “Sin 8/95” (0.46 t/ha of average yield) exceeded the standard variety in seed productivity throughout the years. The synthetic populations “Sin 28/04”, “Sin 18/95”, “Sin 17/95” and “Sin 8/95”, identified among the others due to many traits are going to be studied in further breeding work with the prospect to be sent to State Variety Testing. The identified populations will be introduced into the breeding process as the sources of economically valuable traits.