Bioeconomic evaluation of corn and sorghum silage-based dairy farming system in Sri Lanka
2024
Lakmal, K.A.K.S.
Three field experiments were conducted to determine the effect of variety and planting density on biomass yield, quality of corn and sorghum plants and nutritional quality of silage from corn and sorghum. A feeding and digestibility trial with 18 cows, randomly assigned to 3 treatments of sorghum, corn silage and Napier grass as basal feed, was conducted to determine lactation performance. An economic analysis was done to determine the beneficial dairy feeding system under Sri Lanka conditions. Two varieties each of corn and sorghum were planted under three densities (53,333, 88,888 and 133,333 corn plants/ha and 111,111, 142,857 and 166,666 sorghum plants/ha). Results showed dry matter yield was significantly higher in corn variety HP 4311 with increasing planting density. With sorghum, agronomic parameters were significantly different between varieties in both main and ratoon crop. Better corn silage nutritional quality was obtained at lower planting density. The apparent dry matter digestibility of corn silage was significantly higher milk yield, milk fat and lactose content were observed with cows fed to corn silage. Economic analysis indicated that the use of corn silage is feasible and will be beneficial for the dairy farms in Sri Lanka.
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