Effect of Bacterial Inoculation and of Nitrogen Fertilization on Fodder Quality in Some Grass and Fodder Legume Species

Abstract

Increasing the biological nitrogen fixing capacity through inoculation with improved stems of nitrogen fixing bacteria is an important measure of increasing total nitrogen content in legumes due to the supply of fixed nitrogen. Research on perennial legume species sowed in pure culture or in mixture with perennial grass species showed that in the variants inoculated the content of total nitrogen was close to the content of total nitrogen in the variants fertilized with N100. Mean data for the three vegetation years show that bacterial inoculation of the legumes contributes with 11.5% to the increase of the content of total nitrogen in the plants, while fertilization with N100 has an almost similar contribution (11.0%).

Keywords

• perennial legumes
• bacterial inoculation
• nitrogen fertilization
• total nitrogen
• raw protein