Preliminary Ruminant Digestibility Evaluation of some Romanian Winter Barley Genotypes Grown on Two Levels of N fertilization

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of nitrogen N levels on ruminant digestibility of 18 different Romanian barley genotypes grown in 2013/2014 year. The experiment was designed as randomized blocks and two levels of N were tested: 46 and 92 kg ha-1 (blocks N-46 and N-92) and compared to control block N-0, without nitrogen. The grains were analyzed for chemical composition and in vitro ruminant digestibility IVOMD. The resulted grains yield (t/ha) was significantly lowered by the 92 kg ha-1 N level. The same N fertilization level had a significant effect on increasing the crude protein content. But the mean IVOMD coefficient (%) of all genotypes was significantly decreased for both the N levels (84.45 for N-46, and 83.19 for N-92 compared to 86.92 for N-0).

Keywords

• barley
• ruminant digestibility