20 Apr Conserving Fodder in the form of Silage and Hay
सिलेज (कुटटी) और सूखी घास के रूप में चारा संरक्षण करना Crop production is concerned with the utilization of plant morphological and physiological responses within an agro-climatic environment to produce maximum yield per unit area and time. Year-round forage production through combination of perennial and annual forages. Overlapping cropping systems developed at the Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (IGFRI), Jhansi, to fulfill the needs of dairy farmers for green fodder throughout the year and for small farmers requiring maximum forage from a piece of land. It consists of raising berseem, inter-planted with hybrid Napier in spring and intercropping the inter-row spaces of the grass with cowpea during summer after the final harvest of berseem. This system was found superior to multiple crop sequences both in terms of production and economic returns. The hybrid Napier could be successfully replaced with relatively soft and palatable perennial grasses like Setaria and guinea grass and berseem with lucerne wherever required. Fodder crops are the plant species that are cultivated and harvested for feeding the animals in the form of forage (cut green and fed fresh), silage (preserved under anaerobic condition) and hay (dehydrated green fodder). The total area under cultivated fodders is 8.3 million ha on individual crop basis. Sorghum amongst the kharif crops (2.6...