Morphological characteristics,productivity and quality of three napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schum) cultivars harvested at different AGE

The research was conducted to determine the morphological characteristics,productivity and quality of napier grass cultivars taiwan,king and mott harvested at 8 and 13 after planting. effect of cultivar and harvest arranged in a nested design (3x2). the variables were observed consisting of morphological characteristics,dry matter production and forage quality. the results showed that the morphological characteristics,leaf stem ratio,fiber content,crude protein content and in vitro dry matter digestibility of napier grass taiwan and king cultivar were not different,but both morphological characteristics,fiber content was higher (p <0.05) compared to mott cultivar,whereas leaf stem ratio,crude protein content and in vitro dry matter digestibility mott cultivar was higher (p <0.05) compared to taiwan and king cultivars. in general,an increase in plant height and fiber content at the age of 13 weeks,whereas crude protein content and in vitro dry matter digestibility decreased. it was concluded that the highest dry matter production found in taiwan and the king cultivars,whereas highest quality found in mott cultivar. dry matter production was highest harvested at 13 weeks,whereas the highest quality harvested at 8 weeks after planting for all cultivars tested. crops (hanna et al.,2004). napier grass has been introduced to all tropical area and grows naturally throughout southeast asia where the annual rainfall is about 1000 mm (mannetje and jones,1992). napier grass plants can live in soil where other plants are relatively critical not grow well (sanderson and paul,2008). several cultivars have been developed in indonesia such cultivar of africa,hawaii,trinidad,merkeri,king,taiwan and mott (budiman et al.,2011) and varieties of thailand (hidayat,2010). napier grass is vegetaively propagated and can withstand repeated cutting and rapidly regenerates producing forage which is palatable to cattle at the leafy stage (maria et al.,2010). © 2012 diponegoro university. all rights reserved.