Productivity, Nutritive Value, Growth Rate, Biomass Yield and Economics of Different Hydroponic Green Fodders for Livestock

Abstract

The experiment was aimed to produce fodders by hydroponic method using different seeds commonly available in Tamil Nadu and to identify the most economical seed source for green fodder production by hydroponic method. Different seeds such as yellow maize, horse gram, sun hemp, jowar, ragi, cowpea, foxtail millet and bajra were selected for the study. Productivity, nutritive value, growth rate, biomass yield and economics of different hydroponic green fodders were studied. It was observed that sun hemp, horse gram and cowpea has significantly higher hydroponic fodder productivity per kg of seed. Leguminous type of fodders such as sun hemp, horse gram and cowpea has higher crude protein content than cereal type of fodders such as yellow maize, jowar, bajra, foxtail millet and ragi. Yellow maize has significantly higher root biomass (70 + 0.52%) and low shoot biomass (30 + 0.49 %) yield while sun hemp as significantly higher shoot biomass (80 + 0.61%) and low root biomass (20 + 0.63%) yield percentage. Yellow maize fodder has significantly lowest production cost (Rs. 3.20) than all the other hydroponic fodders. After analyzing the productivity, growth rate, nutritive value, biomass yield, cost of production and availability it was concluded that, yellow maize is the cost effective seed for green fodder production by hydroponic method in Tamil nadu and horse gram and sun hemp fodder were found to be the most nutritive and high biomass yielding fodders.