Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS-SERIES A-AGRONOMY, cilt.59, ss.374-377, 2016 (ESCI)
Summers are hot and dry and winters are cool and precipitated in regions with dominant Mediterranean climate. Since the pastures totally dry out during hot-dry period, sheep usually graze over wheat stubble in Turkey. The present study was conducted to investigate the herbage yield and quality of wheat stubble and Sorghum Sudan-grass pastures during summer dry periods and to compare live weight gains of the sheep grazed over these pastures. In sorghum Sudan-grass pastures, sheep (4 Karacabey merino race sheep x 3 replications) freely grazed in each plot for two-and-a half month (July-August-September) when the plants had 50-75 cm heights. Similar grazing treatments were also performed over wheat stubble. Dry herbage yields of wheat stubble and sorghum sudan-grass pastures were respectively observed as 2.82 ton/ha and 10.0 ton/ha. Considering the herbage quality of the wheat stubble, crude protein was 6.28 %; NDF was 66.54%. ADF was 37.88%, ADL was 4.37%, DMD was 60.25%, ME was 2.18 Kcal/kgKM. The same values were respectively observed as 11.33%, 61.13%, 31.58%, 2.99%, 67.27%, 2.43% in sorghum sudan-grass pasture. Traditional sheep grazing can be performed over wheat stubble pastures, but supplementary energy feed with CP should be provided. Sorghum sudan-grass can also be cultivated as an alternative to traditional stubble grazing. In this case, there is no need for supplementary feeds.