ChileanJAR

During november 1988 to september 1989 the yield and quality of the three cultivar of fodder best and five corn silage cultivars were evaluated as winter supplementary feed. The trial was conducted at Carillanca Experiment Station (INIA), both crop were sown in spring in a randomized block design with three replicate. Plot size was 5 rows of6m large at 0.5 m width for the fodder beet cultivars and 4 rows 6m large and 0.7 m for the corn silage cultivars. Fodder beet was sown at 15 kg/ha and the corn silage with a population of 90,000 plants/ha. Corn silage cultivars were harvested at 145 days from sowing. Yield, population and component of yield in each crop were taken from 3 rows at each replicate in both crops. Average yield of the fodder beet cultivars reached maximum values of 27.85 ton/ha and only 20.43 ton/ hain corn silage cultivars (P < 0.01). Corn silage cultivars P-3902 andT-289s showedthe highesttotal dry matter yield with 18.94 and 16.70 ton/ha, respectively, differences statistically significant (P < 0.01) with the others cultivars evaluated. Protein content of the fodder beet whole plant showed values of 10.3% in Blanca ANASAC, 11.2% for Cisvert and the higest value o 13.4% for the Briga cultivar. The highest protein content was located in the leaves with an average of 16.5%. Protein content of corn silage cultivars was similar, with values in the range of 7.2 to 7.6%. Cell wall content (N.D.F.), lignocellulose (F.D.A.) and hemicellulose was similar between fodder beet cultivars, the same trend was observed in the corn silage cultivars. Comparing the two crops the fodder beet and the corn silage cultivars the A.D.F., N.D.F. and hemicellulose content was consistently higher in the corn silage than the fodder beet.