Determination of hay yield and quality of forage turnip and cereal mixtures

The aim of current study was to investigate the effects of intercropping forage turnip "FT" with cereals (barley, "B", wheat "W" and oat "O") for improving forage yield and nutritive value in Bilecik conditions in 2019-2002 and 2020-2021 growing periods. The percentage of forage turnip and cereals in mixtures was 100+0%, 75+25%, 50+50%, 25+75%, and 0+100%, respectively. Experiments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Pure forage turnip and mixtures were harvested at the flowering stage based on forage turnip, while the cereals were harvested at milk-dough stages In the mixtures; the hay yield, crude protein yield, relative feed value (RFV), condensed tannin, total phenolic, total flavonoid, and mineral contents (K, P, Ca, and Mg) were determined. The highest hay yield was determined in pure barley (8.62 t ha-1), pure oat (8.62 t ha-1), 75FT+25B% (8.91 t ha-1), 75FT+25O% (8.67 t ha-1), 50FT+50B% (8.93 t ha-1), 50FT+50B% (8.93 t ha-1), 50FT+5OO% (10.27 t ha-1), 25YŞ+75A% (9.35 t ha-1) and 25FT+75O% (9.50 t ha-1). Crude protein ratio ranged between 21.91-11.64%. The highest crude protein yield was determined in pure forage turnip (1.44 t ha-1), 50FT+50O% (1.80 t ha-1) and 75FT+25B% (1.74 t ha-1) mixtures. The RFV ranged from 84.96 to 136.29. Mineral content and secondary metabolite contents of forage turnip cereal mixtures were sufficient in terms of animal health. The present study showed that intercropping of forage turnip with barley and oat improved the hay yield and quality. Besides, there were differences between the seed rates in terms of the traits examined. As a result, in Bilecik ecological conditions, the best results regarding for forage yield and quality were obtained from the FT+B and FT+O mixtures with seed rates of 75:25% and 50:50%, respectively.