Investigation of the effect of the cover crops on weeds, silage productivity and quality in the silage corn production

Corn is one of the most important rough feed in animal feeding, either green or silage. According to 2016 data in Central Anatolia, the area of silage maize is 349.140 (da), production 1.855.918 tons. There are a lot of biotic and abiotic factors affecting yield in the silage corn fields. Weeds are one of the most important yield limiting factors in the silage corn fields. Alternative weed control methods are needed because of the various side effects of herbicides. Using cover crops for weed control in silage corn fields is one of the broadly applied alternative methods. This study was conducted to determine weed suppressiveness of cover crops in silage corn fields in the Kayseri in Turkey. This study carried out in ERUTARM's trial farm in Central Campus of Erciyes University in Kayseri province, The cultivar of "Prestij" was used for the experiments. Vicia villosa, Secale cereale, Vicia pannonica, Brassica rapa rapa, Lolium perenne, Brassica oleraceae var. acephala were used as cover crops in the experiment. Control plots such as weedy control and weedless control were added as reference plots. The experiments were conducted in a split plots experimental design with four replications, and all cover crops were grown on the same plot during the experimental periods. In the experiment, the effects of cover crops both on weeds and on silage yield and quality were investigated. Cover crop biomass and weed biomass were clipped from three 0.25 m2 frames per plot and oven dried. As a result of the studies, the highest cover crop dry biomass was obtained from pilots of 147.79 g / 0.25 m2 hairy vetch (V. villosa). While the highest weed dry biomass was obtained from weedy control plots the lowest weed dry biomass were obtained hairy vetch (V. villosa) plots. The hairy vetch also affected the yield and quality of maize silage. The highest ratio of crude protein, raw fat content, dry matter content and green grass yield were obtained from the hairy vetch plots.