Enhancing Quality of Fodder Sorghum through Application of Fe Chelates

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Monech) is one of the important fodder crops for ruminants and it is a dual-purpose crop used as a food and fodder but one of the great limiting factors with the forage sorghum is that it is having an anti-nutritional factor cyanogen, which is extremely toxic to the animals feeding on them. The present experiment was conducted at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore to study the effect of iron on the quality of fodder crop. The experiment was laid in Factorial CRD with 3 factors namely seven sources of Iron (Fe glycinate citrate, Fe tartrate, Fe glutamate, FeSO4, Fe-EDDHA, Fe malate) four levels (FeSO4 - 0, 25, 37.5 and 50 kg ha -1 and Fe chelates - 0, 1, 2.5 and 5 kg ha -1) and two different soils (non-calcareous and calcareous). The experiment was carried out with 2 replications. It was seen that application of Ferrous citrate at 5 kg ha -1 has shown the maximum reduction in cyanogen content and it has shown an increase in crude protein and decreased crude fibre content, which are desirable qualities in fodder crop. The variation in above parameter may be due to the fact that Fe is a constructive component of different enzymes (hematian, cytochroms, propyrin and ferrichrome) that favourably improves the nutritional environment of crop and final yield. All treatments supplied with micronutrients irrespective of the soil has shown decreased cyanogen levels below the threshold of 200 ppm, which is safe for feeding cattle as green forage under normal cultivation.