Substituição da silagem de sorgo forrageiro pela silagem de sorgo biomassa na alimentação de vacas mestiças em lactação

Abstract

Sorghum stands out as an ideal forage plant to mitigate the effects of low livestock performance in the semiarid region. Among sorghum types, biomass has the particularity of being more sensitive to the photoperiod, which allows the expansion of the vegetative cycle and increases the biomass production per hectare / cycle. Thus, the objective was to evaluate the replacement of forage sorghum silage by biomass sorghum silage in the diet of F1 Holstein/Zebu cows on nutrient intake and digestibility, ingestive behavior, nitrogen balance, production and composition of milk. The experimental design was in two 5 x 5 Latin squares, simultaneous, composed, each one, by five animals, five treatments and five experimental periods. The study included 10 cows with an initial weight of 544 ± 12.84 and lactation at the beginning of the experiment. The treatments were defined by replacing forage sorghum silage with biomass sorghum silage at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%. The roughage: concentrate ratio in the total dry matter of the diets was 75:25. The replacement of forage sorghum silage by biomass sorghum silage in the diet of F1 Holstein/Zebu cows does not alter milk production, despite changing the consumption and digestibility of dry matter, thus demonstrating that biomass sorghum silage can replace up to 100% forage sorghum silage in the feed of crossbred cows.