Comparison of productivity and feeding characteristics of two sweet sorghums cultivars

Two sweet sorghum cultivars, Sorghum dochna cv. Liaotian No.1 and No.3, were used to test the features of adaptability and dairy cow feeding for high quality forage screening. The results showed that the two cultivars grown well in the east of Hebei Province and could be used as green roughage and silage. The suitable growth density was 60.0 to 67.5 thousand plants/hm2. The fresh matter yields of Liaotian No.1 and No.3 reached 29.98 to 33.7 t/hm2 and 31.51 to 35.45 t/hm2 respectively. The sweet milk yields of dairy cows fed with Liaotian No.1 and No.3 as the basic diet were 2.64 kg and 2.49 kg higher than that of maize silage (contents of dry matter, lactoproteid and milk fat were same). Liaotian No.1 and No.3 were excellent green roughage because it was easy to be utilized by green feeding and silage making, and its yield was high.