Kansas State University. Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service
Doi
Abstract
Agronomic and silage quality traits were
measure d for 37 forage sorghum cultivars and
three grain sorghum hybrids. The 1995 growing
season was characterized by above average
rainfall in the spring and early summer, and a
hard freeze on September 22. At the time of
the freeze, 20 cultivars had reached the early-milk
to early-dough stage, 12 were in the
bloom stage, and the remaining eight were still
in the early- to late-boot stage . The late planting
date and low plant populations resulted in
below-normal whole-plant D M and grain yields.
Plant height s for the grain sorghums were near
normal, but the forage sorghums were well
below expected plant heights. The preensiled,
whole-plan t DM contents of the 37 forage
sorghums ranged from 23.0 to 39.9%. As
expected , the silage nutritive value traits of CP,
NDF, and ADF were most favorable for the
three grain sorghum hybrids and least favorable
for the eight forage sorghum hybrids that were
still in the boot stage when the freeze occurred
