Abstract:
Executive Summary
To overcome continuous food and feed shortage, cereal crops need to be grown for dual
purpose. Sowing time and cutting management both are important to obtain the balanced
green fodder and grain yield simultaneously. Based on the above issue, a field experiment
was conducted in Rabi, 2021 season at agronomy field of Sher-e Bangla Agricultural
University having five sowing times (30 October, 15 November, 30 November, 15
December and 30 December) and four cutting schedules (uncut, cutting at Zadoks growth
stage, ZGS 19, cutting at ZGS29 and ZGS31) with three replications to find out the optimum
sowing time and cutting stage and their effect on growth and yield for dual purpose barley.
Among sowing times, 30 October was sowing recorded significantly higher plant height, dry
matter accumulation, effective tiller, fertile spikelet, spike length, 1000-grain weight, grain
yield, straw yield, biological yield and green fodder yield uncut (control) and cut for fodder
conditions. Cutting of barley for green fodder purpose had reduced significantly all growth
parameters, yield attributes and yield compared to uncut barley. Among cutting schedules,
minimum and maximum reduction in growth parameters, yield attributes and yield were
recorded with cutting of fodder at ZGS19 (vegetative growth stage) and ZGS31 (stem
elongation stage), respectively compared to uncut. However, cutting of barley for fodder
purpose at ZGS29 (tillering stage) was found in a balance between green fodder and grain
yield simultaneously. Therefore, the study suggested that early sowing (30 October) can
compensate the reduction in barley yield due to fodder cutting in dual purpose barley and
cutting at maximum tillering stage (ZGS29) can balance having optimum green fodder yield
and grain yield simultaneously.
