Nutritive Value and Fodder Potential of Different Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) Cultivars

The current work was focused on evaluating 24 sorghum accessions for fodder yield potential and nutritional quality during summer 2015 in the Department of Forage Crops, TNAU, Coimbatore. Plant samples were collected at 50% flowering stage and evaluated for nine fodder yield and 13 forage quality parameters. Grounded samples were used for assessing the fodder quality. The variety K 3 showed superiority for green fodder yield per plant with 1452.40g followed by TKSV 1050 (1409.47g) and the accession TKSV 1126 was exceptionally better in quality with high nutrition and less in fibre portions. Variability analysis observed that phenotypic selection of traits viz., number of leaves per plant, ether extract, dry fodder and green fodder yield per plant would be effective for fodder improvement. Genetic diversity analysis leads to the formation of five clusters. Cluster V had accessions with high yield potential and quality and Cluster II was confined with accessions having better forage quality. Furthermore, the accession TKSV 1126 obtained ‘A1’ grade (AFIA standards) with high nutritional quality; less fibre; better digestibility and metabolisable energy and could well be used as a donor in improving the nutritional content of sorghum varieties, which is lacking in the present-day cultivars.