International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
Abstract
Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) haulms provide important
fodder resources for livestock feeding in mixed croplivestock
systems in developing countries (Larbi et al.
1999, Rama Devi et al. 2000, Omokanye et al. 2001). In
these systems fodder shortage is considered one of the
major constraints to high livestock productivity and its
corollary, high income from the marketing of livestock
products. Shrinking common property resources and the
little or no scope to expand arable land are further
limiting the availability of fodder resources in the rainfed
semi-arid tropics. These factors are increasing the value
of groundnut as a food-feed crop for which both pod and
haulm yields and quality traits are important. Improving
the productivity of groundnut can address pod as well as
haulm traits, but there is a lack of information on the
variability amongst cultivars for the fodder quality of
their haulms. This work reported here investigated the
variability in cultivar-dependent fodder quality of
groundnut haulms through measurement of productivity
parameters of young sheep
