Avaliação da aptidão forrageira de genótipos de sorgo e milho no centro sul do Piauí.

Abstract

EVALUATION OF FORAGE SUITABILITY OF SORGHUM AND CORN GENOTYPES IN THE SOUTH CENTER OF PIAUÍ.

Actor: Gerson Vieira da Silva1 Advisor: Prof. Dr. Gerffeson Thiago Mota de Almeida Silva2

ABSTRAT

The cereals are grown all over the world due to the importance of their grains as a food source that are important sources of starch, protein and oil. Sorghum has Africa and part of Asia as its center of origin and presents promising characteristics to be produced in Northeast Brazil. The culture of sorghum represents great importance in our productive environment, due to its great adaptability, its capacity for regrowth and biomass production, and can easily be a substitute for corn. Therefore, the execution of this work aimed to evaluate the potential of forage sorghum and maize cultivars traditionally cultivated by regional farmers, as an alternative source of silage production in an area of the hinterland of Piauí, under irrigated regime. The experiment was carried out in the didactic agricultural experimental area of the Instituto Federal do Piauí, Campus São João do Piauí, located in the municipality of São João do Piauí - PI. The experiment used an experimental design in randomized blocks with 4 treatments (3 varieties of sorghum and 1 of creole corn) and with four replications. The plots were composed of four rows of 6 meters, with the lateral row used as a useful area, with 1 meter between rows and 0.25 centimeters between plants and 2 meters between blocks, totaling an area of 9 by 20 meters. The experiment was installed on 02/18/2022, sowing was performed manually, using three seeds per hole, 5 cm deep. The forage production of three sorghum varieties and a maize genotype was evaluated: Sorghum – BRS Ponta Negra, Sorghum - Acesso a Marrecas and Sorghum – Gigante and a variety of local maize. The evaluated treatments showed a significant difference at the 5% probability level, using Tukey's procedure for the growth of sorghum and corn varieties. The giant sorghum was inferior to the other treatments in terms of plant height. When the plant diameter (D.P.) was evaluated, it was not possible to detect statistical differences between the evaluated treatments. In relation to number of leaves (N.F.) Sorghum - BRS Ponta Negra proved to be superior to the other treatments. As for the Green Mass Index (I.M.V.) it was verified that treatments Sorghum - BRS Ponta Negra were superior to the treatments presenting a green mass index around 1.1 tons/hectare. As for the Dry Mass Index (DMI) in this study, the Creole corn genotype showed a higher DM yield, higher when compared to the Sorghum varieties. However, due to the potential for regrowth of the sorghum crop, there is a greater trend in biomass yield in the BRS Ponta Negra and BRS Marrecas treatments.

Keywords: Green massiness; Sorghum bicolor; Zea mays; Regrowth; Yield