COMPARISON OF YIELDS AND NUTRITIVE VALUE OF DIFFERENT SPRING GREEN FORAGE MIXTURES

To achieve a more efficient system of green feeding it is necessary to introduce new field cropping species in ruminant nutrition as green forage is which nutritional value has not been exactly evaluated yet. In our researches we analysed the yields and nutritive value of different spring green forage mixtures. We concluded that green forage mixtures gave more green and crude protein yield than the average of the components, and the nutritive value of the mixtures was better than the components’ nutritive value. In the average of three years, the dry matter content in the mixtures was similar to each other at the start of flowering. In our research the measured dry matter content in mixtures was higher than pea mixed with sunflower from literature and pea mixed with oat. The difference between vetch mixed with oat and the analyzed pea and barley mixture was 29 g/kg. Pea can give almost the same crude protein yield level than pea with oat and pea with spring barley. Based on achieved results it can be concluded that pea was a reliable component with barley and oat even in extreme weather conditions and in spring mixtures with barley or oat, the vegetative types of pea are recommended as leguminous component instead of using the “traditional” vetches, with special regard to the crude protein content.