A 7-year study was conducted on forage yield, digestibility, and crude protein of 7 species of grass, 3 cultivars of alfalfa, and cicer milkvetch at Sidney, Mont., from 1975 through 1981. Forage quality was inversely proportional with forage yield. Crude protein concentration of legumes and grasses decreased 0.8 and 1.25 percentage units, respectively, while dry matter digestibility decreased 1.5 to 2.3 percentage units per every 1,000 kg/ha increase in forage yield. Meadow bromegrass and reed canarygrass produced the least forage from the second through seventh years of the study. Neither forage yield nor quality differed among the 3 creeping-rooted alfalfas: 'Rambler', 'Drylander', and 'Orenberg'. Russian wildrye, Altai wildrye, and green needlegrass produced the most forage during the 1980 drought, and the alfalfas, pubescent wheatgrass, and meadow bromegrass produced the least. Cicer milkvetch and reed canarygrass died during the 1980 drought. Forage digestibility of the alfalfas was 5 to 6 percentage units higher than that of the grasses, and the alfalfas also produced more digestible forage per unit of land. The crude protein concentration of alfalfas was almost twice that in grasses, and alfalfa produced almost twice as much crude protein per unit of land (kg/ha). This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.