THE POTENTIAL OF WINTER COVER CROPS FOR EARLY SPRING
FODDER
Davor Pajančić1, Bojan Stipešević1, Suzana Kratovalieva2,
Danijel Jug1, Duško Mukaetov2,
Irena Jug1, Juliana Cvetković2, Miro Stošić1,
Bojana Teodorović1
1Faculty of Agriculture Osijek; Trg Sv.
Trojstva 3, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
2“Ss. Cyril and Methodius“
University in Skopje, Institute for Agriculture,
Bul. Aleksandar Makedonski bb, MK-1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
bojans@pfos.hr
The use of cover
crops is a recognized and well known method for soil tilth, soil
nutrients conservation and weed suppression, whereas the utilization of
winter cover crops for early spring fodder is not sufficiently
investigated, especially in organic agriculture, where special rules have
been applied. The experimental set up near Valpovo, Croatia, at the eutric
brown cambisol soil type, during the years of 2007 and 2008, aimed toward
effects of different cover crops and their mixtures on the biomass
production and cover crops potential for early spring fodder. The
experimental set-up was CRBD in four repetitions, with eight cover crop
treatments after soybean (Glycine
max L.) and pop-corn maize (Zea
mays L. var. everta): WW – winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), RY – winter
rye (Secale cereale L.) FP –
field pea (Pisum arvense L.);
HV – hairy vetch (Vicia vilosa L.);
WF – mixture of WW and FP; WH – mixture of WW and HV; RF – mixture of RY
and FP; and RH – mixture of RY and HV. The highest dry biomass production
treatments were WW and RY after soybean with 3123 and 2987 kg of dry
matter per ha, and RY and WW after maize, with 1656 and 1399 kg of dry
matter ha–1, respectively. Regarding protein production
potential, WW and RY treatments after soybean yielded 226 and 183 kg of
proteins, whereas HV and WH treatments after maize produced 155 and 143
kg of proteins, respectively.
Key words: winter wheat;
winter rye; field pea; hairy vetch; dry biomass; protein
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