Scientific Journal of KubSAU

The organization of animal feeding in the summer and procurement of fodder for the winter are of great importance. The sowings of sugar sorghum can become a reliable and stable source of fodder even in the regions with insufficient humidity. It is a unique drought tolerant crop, which can be used as green mass, hay, silage, grain, mono fodder, briquettes. The article gives the study results of green mass and absolutely dry substance, and the assessment of cultivation efficiency of such sugar sorghum varieties and hybrids grown in FSBSI ‘I.G. Kalinenko ARRIGC’ as ‘Zernogradsky yantar’, ‘Debyut’, ‘Listvenit’, ‘Zersil F1’, ‘Elisey F1’. The productivity of green mass and dry substance of the new variety ‘Listvenit’ and the hybrid ‘Elisey’ exceeded the standard variety on 7,0-5,0 t/ha and 2,30-0,74 t/ha respectively. The cultivation technologies of sweet sorghum varieties and hybrids produced the high net energy of 69,6-121,9 GJ/ha with the coefficient of energy efficiency of 3,72- 5,08. As for the energy, the cultivation technology of the sweet sorghum hybrid ‘Elisey’ can be considered as the most efficient variant, as it produced the maximum net energy of 121,9 GJ/ha with the coefficient of energy efficiency of 5,08

Sorghum is a source of concentrated, succulent and coarse forage. Its grain is used for making the mixed fodder and as the concentrated forage for swine, cows, sheep, horses and poultry. Sweet sorghum is successfully used for silage and haylage. Green chop of Sudan grass is used as fresh food for domestic animals and it’s used for making hay and silage. The nutritional value of the fodder is the way to meet the animal needs in nutrients, necessary for living. To determine the nutritional value of the fodder, oat fodder units and energy fodder units or exchange energy are used. At present the assessment of nutritional value according to fodder units is being revised, because it doesn’t give the true picture of the value of fodder nutrition and animal needs in nutrients. The general energetic nutritional value of fodder is considered as contents of all organic substances, supplied with fodder or with its energy. The nutritional value of fodder is valued according to the characteristics of its chemical composition, digestion of nutrients and general (energetic) nutritional value. The purpose of the work is to assess the nutritional value of fodder, obtained from the best sorghum varieties, as the food for different kinds of agricultural animals. Sorghum, used as fodder for poultry possesses the largest nutritional value. Among the grain sorghum varieties, the variety ‘Zernogradskoe 88’ has got the biggest value of fodder units. The green chop of Sudan grass and green fodder for silage of sweet sorghum possess the greatest nutritional value for swine. The varieties of Sudan grass ‘Krasava’ and ‘Arkadiya’ and the variety of sweet sorghum ‘Listvenit’ are the best varieties according to the contents of fodder units

Sorghum is cultivated in many countries of the world on around 50 ml hectares. The main producers of sorghum are India, Nigeria, Sudan and the USA. Sorghum comes from equatorial Africa. India and China are the secondary places of origin and formation. The USA achieved great success in breeding, seedgrowing and agro technologies of grain sorghum. In the country sorghum occupies 14.4% of the world amount of sowing areas; the gross yield is 40%. Sorghum breeding on Don was started by E.S. Yakushevsky in 1938. In 1963 after a long break the work was restarted at the Zernograd Breeding Station headed by Ya.I. Issakov. At present the amount of sowing areas for sorghum is constantly increasing in RF (220.3 thousand ha in 2015). It occurs due to aridity of climate and more frequent use of the crop as insurance. Besides, the development of white kernel varieties gave an opportunity to use sorghum for starch and spirit. There are 221 varieties and hybrids of sorghum registered in the State List. The main directions of breeding work with grain sorghum are early maturity, suitability for mechanical harvesting, productivity and grain quality. The ARRIGC developed the white kernel early maturing varieties ‘Velikan’, ‘Zernogradskoe 88’, ‘Ataman’ without necessity to be dried after harvesting, with productivity of 8 t/ha. The main directions of breeding work with sweet sorghum are early maturity, high intensity of initial growth, low height, resistance to lodging, high productivity and quality of green chop. The ARRIGC developed the varieties for fodder use (‘Listvenit’), for spirit and treacle (‘Debyut’ and ‘Zernogradsky Yantar’). Sorghum due to origin and varietal diversity even in dry and hot parts of the world allow obtaining stable, high yields of grain and green chop. This makes sorghum the leading grain-forage and food crop

The effects of the general and specific combination abili-ty of the parental forms of hybrids are revealed, and the degree of domination, value of true heterosis are also determined; the types of the inheritance of protein in the reciprocal hybrids F1 of sorghum grain, obtained accord-ing to diallel diagram are studied