16 May Multipurpose wheat crop as fodder cum grain
चारा सह अनाज की बहुउद्देशीय गेहूं फसल। Eastern region of India possesses large number of ruminant population (162 million) which is equivalent to almost 55 million adult cattle units that depend on available feed resources. The dry and green roughages contribute to the tune of 80-90 percent in their ration and hence, a total of 184 million ton dry matter is required to feed the present population. Generally, green fodder contribution varies from 25 to 40 percent in ruminant’s ration depending upon availability. But, at the same time, an acute shortage of green fodder prevails in the eastern part of India that varies from 82 to 89 percent. The main reason behind this gap is low land holding and negligible area under fodder production. Feeding of fodder not only balances the different nutrients in the ration but also useful in health and reproduction point of view. Therefore, considering the above problem, a study was conducted to evaluate wheat as fodder cum grain production to mitigate fodder scarcity problem in the eastern part of India. A plot was prepared by adding FYM @ 5 t/ha. Then, wheat (var. VL-829) was sown in the first week of November with the distance of 30 cm row-to-row and 10 cm plant-to-plant in different small plots of 10 m2 size...