Performance of Selected Silage and Summer Annual Grass Crops as Affected by Soil Type, Planting Date, and Moisture Regime 1

Experiments were conducted over a period of 5 years on two soils at each of six locations to determine the effects of soil mapping unit and climatic differences on the silage yield and grain content of corn and grain and forage sorghums and on the forage production of a sorghum-sudangrass hybrid and pearlmillet. The soils at each location were selected for their differences in moisture supplying capacity. Climatic differences were obtained by location effects, planting dates, and irrigation. Higher yields resulted from the soil with the more desirable moisture-holding characteristics in the "pair" at each location. Irrigation generally resulted in higher corn, grain and forage sorghum silage yields than natural rainfall alone, but it did not affect substantially production of green-chopped sorghum and pearlmillet, illustrating the greater tolerance of these two crops to moisture stress