Studies on groundnut based farming systems for scarce rainfall zone of Andhra Pradesh

Groundnut is the major crop being cultivated in about 10 lakhs ha is the major economy of the Anantapur district and crop failure is a regular feature. As only monocropping of groundnut is being followed in the district due to low and erratic rainfall situations and with only 14–17 weeks of rainy period, the employment opportunity is only for a short period of 3–4 months and one of the best livelihood option is sheep farming in this region. An experiment was conducted at ARS, Anantapur for a period of five months during January to May 2010, with four treatments. The treatments consists of feeding with available dry fodders in the farm, green fodders, both dry and green fodders in the proportion of 1:1 and compared with natural grazing. For each treatment five sheep (3 rams + 2 ewes) after the age of four months were tagged and kept separately under three rooms of sheep shed under stall feeding. The results indicate that average body weight of sheep was decreased during first 15 days under stall feeding treatments (T1),T2) and T3) compared to natural grazing (T4).The decrease in body weight during first 15 days in stall feeding treatments are in the range of 0.20 to 0.84 kg per sheep compared to initial body weight. it could be concluded that, sheep fed with available dry fodder such as groundnut haulms and horsegram bhusa for 5 months recorded higher body weight and profitable for sheep rearing after harvest of groundnut.