Dry Matter Yield and Quality of Vetch Species Intercropped with Finger Millet at Different Seeding Ratios in Western Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate dry matter yield and quality of three vetch species (Vicia sativa, Vicia vilosa, and Vicia atropurpurea) intercropped with finger millet at different seeding ratios in western Oromia, Ethiopia. The experimental design was Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The treatment consisted of three vetch species, five seeding ratios (0:100, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25 and 100:0 % Finger millet: Vetch respectively). Agronomic parameters such as plant height, number of leaves per plant, Leaf to stem ratio, number of branches per plant and forage dry matter yield (DMY) were determined following standard procedures. Feeds chemical compositions were also determined according to the recommended procedures. Intercropping indices such as land equivalent ratio (LER) and relative crowding coefficient (RCC) were also determined. Data were subjected to the ANOVA procedure of the General Linear Model (GLM) of SAS software version 9.3. Most measured parameters revealed significant (P<0.05) difference among the treatments.  The interaction of species and seeding ratios showed a significant difference (P<0.05) for plant height at forage harvesting stage. The maximum and minimum plant heights (154.00 and 85.33 cm) were obtained from T10 and T5 respectively. Dry matter yield of vetch was affected (P<0.05) by the treatments. The highest and the lowest dry matter yield of vetch (2.56 t ha^-1 and 1.28 t ha^-1) were obtained from T8 and T10 respectively. CP content of vetch had shown significant variation (P<0.05) for the tested treatments and the highest value was obtained from T12 (19.16%). The LER varied from 0.77 to 1.16. In the present study, land equivalent ratio values greater than 1.0 are recorded from T10 (1.16), T9 (1.08) and T11 (1.03). The highest forage dry matter yield of vetch, which can be supplemented in ruminant ration, was obtained from T8. The result of this study is important for food-feed feed production strategy.

Keywords: Finger millet, Vetch species, seeding ratios, dry matter yield

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/13-15-03

Publication date:September 30^th 2022