National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Green fodder supplementation is the best way to reduce the cost of production in livestock farming. The expenditure on concentrate feed will be curtail by feeding of legume fodder. Urbanization reduces the land area for fodder production and also the failure in monsoon urges the farmers to go for fodder production under agroforestry models. Calopogonium mucunoides is a fodder legume with high quality protein and grows fast and remain productive during dry seasons. It also improves the soil nitrogen by fixing and makes the soil fertile (Mc Donald et al., 2011). Hence, the present experiment was conducted to study the suitability of Calopogonium mucunoides as understorey of Cocus nucifera / Psidium guajava based hortipasture system and assesing its nutritive value in goats. Experiment was conducted at Institute of Animal Nutrition, Kattupakkam. In the existing hortipasture, interspaces between Cocus nucifera / Psidium guajava in degraded wasteland was taken for the cultivation of Calapagonium mucunoides as per the standard package of practices and harvested twice to document the yield. The Mean biomass yield (MT/ha) of Calopogonium mucunoides as sole crop vs understorey of Psidium guajava and Cocus nucifera was recorded. Samples of Calopogonium mucunoides were also estimated for their proximate principles as per AOAC (2000). The digestibility of Calopogonium mucunoides was assessed in 6 Kanni goats by difference method. Based on the findings, it is concluded that higher biomass yield was recorded with the understorey of Cocus nucifera compared to the understorey of Psidium guajava could be due to the optimum sunlight. Therefore, there is potential to improve the Cocus nucifera based hortipasture by incorporating Calopogonium mucunoides as fodder cum legume cover crop thus improves the soil fertility.
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