Forage yield and botanical composition of mixtures of some perennial warm season grasses with alfalfa (medicago sativa l.) under mediterranean conditions

This research was conducted to determine forage yield and botanical composition of duo (alfalfa + one grass)and trio ( alfalfa + two grasses) mixtures of some warm season perennial grass species such as dallis grass(Paspalum dilatatum Poir. ), Rhodes grass ( Chloris gayana L.) and Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) with alfalfa as well as their pure sowings under irrigated conditions of Mediterranean during the years of2009 -2011. In the study, green herbage yield, dry matter yield, botanical composition and land equivalentratio (LER) were determined. The experimental design was completely randomized block design with threereplications. According to the results, it was determined that the ratios of warm season grasses in the botanicalcomposition o f the mixtures declined with the establishment age while rate of alfalfa in the botanicalcomposition of the mixtures increased. The mixtures gave higher dry matter yield than pure sowings of thespecies. The highest green herbage yield (68 .4 4 t ha -1) was obtained from the mixture of alfalfa + R hodes grass .The highest dry matter yield (15 .4 0 t ha -1) was obtained from the mixture of alfalfa + Bermuda grass +R hodes grass. The highest alfalfa proportion (50.0% ) was obtained from the mixture of alfalfa + Be rmudagrass . The highest LER (1.63 ) was obtained from mixture of alfalfa + dallis grass .

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