Screening of silage maize cultivars for their agronomic traits in Hohhot of China

Abstract

Abstract The study was conducted to determine yield and agronomic traits of some silage corn varieties in Hohhot of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, in order to screen several suitable varieties grown as the main forage in Hohhot. The study was established to randomized complete block design pattern with three replications in irrigating conditions. In this research, agronomic traits including growing stages, days from emergence to silage harvest, plant height (cm), ear height, stalk diameter, number of green leaves, lodging rate, empty stalk rate, double strike rate, forage yield, and forage nutritive traits including crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), were determined in 34 silage corn varieties. The results showed that most of the varieties showed obvious difference among the growing stages, especially after tasseling stage. The forage yield range was from 31.21 to 80.53 T Ha-1. Among all the tested varieties, a total number of 17 (ranking from 1 to 17) varieties of forage production were higher than 50 T/Ha._Combined with agronomic and forage nutritive data obtained from the study, we finally selected 5 varieties (Jilong 369, Xianyu 1580, Xianyu 1692, Jinai 130, 32D22) as the suitable varieties to promote planting in Hohhot.