DESEMPENHO PRODUTIVO, MORFOMÉTRICO E COMPOSIÇÃO QUÍMICA DE CULTIVARES DE CAPIM ELEFANTE SOB IRRIGAÇÃO EM CERES - GO

Abstract

The irrigated elephant grass is an interesting alternative in the intensification of forage production in small rural property. The objective of this study was to evaluate different cultivars and cutting times of elephant grass in Ceres-GO. The experiment was evaluated in the dry and water seasons. The design in each epoch was of the type RBD in split plots, being the plots, the six cultivars, and the sub plots, two cutting ages (45 and 60 days). The cultivars were: Cameroon Comum, Cameroon Roxo, BRS Capiaçu, BRs Canará, BRS Kurumi and Napier. The attributes were evaluated: plant height (PH), number of basal tillers (NBT), leaf stem ratio (L/S), stem diameter (SD), stem Length (SL), number of leaves (NL), leaf width (LW), Number of aerial tillers (NAT), dry mass (DM) and crude protein (CP). The cultivar BRS Kurumi presented the best grazing conditions due to low size and a larger number of leaves. The cultivars studied did differ in productivity (DM) until 60 days. Crude protein levels remained constant for all cultivars in the two evaluated seasons. The cutoff at 60 days presents higher averages for the evaluated characteristics, except for L/S in the dry.