Comportamento do milho em consórcio com diferentes forrageiras

Abstract

Corn silage refers to every planted corn with the purpose of ensilage the whole plant when it reaches about 30% and 37% of dry mass. Its intense exploration has favored resources degradation processes of the agro ecosystems and the forages intercrop has been taken as an alternative to the sustainability of the culture. This research evaluated the behavior of the ensilage corn culture intercropped or not with different forages. The experiment was conducted in Cândido Godói, located in the northwest of Rio Grande do Sul in the first semester of 2014. The cultivar managed was Agroeste 1573 with 4 plants by meter density and 0,75m of row spacing. The same was conducted in monoculture or intercropped, or with sorghum, brachiaria, millet and and sudan grass in density of 2,5; 2; 10 and 17 plants in a linear meter respectively, planted simultaneously in the culture inter row. It was evaluated the culture dry mass, plant height, stem diameter, corn ear weight percentage, green mass and dry mass of the forage. The intercrops with sudan grass, sorghum, millet and brachiaria producted 1029, 503, 270 and 47kg of dry mass per covering hectare, however reduced the corn productivity the intercrops with sudan grass and millet in 35 and 13% respectively. It is possible to consider that in the research conditions the Brachiaria and sorghum intercrops are cultivation alternatives for not only keeping the ensilage corn productivity but also producing covering straw to contribute on the soil conservation.