Agricultural and Biological Research

Evaluation of fodder crops for hydroponic green fodder potential

Shawal, Yousaf Jamal, Haroon Ilahi*, Muhammad Adnan, Fazal ur Rehman, Aziz Ullah, Muneeb Ur Rehman, Atta Ullah and Sayed Zubair

Soil-based agriculture is now experiencing challenges due to numerous anthropogenic reasons, such as deforestation, urbanization and industrialization. Scientists have therefore established a new alternative solution to the farming system, named as soil-less or hydroponic cultivation. Keeping in mind this situation an experiment was conducted to evaluate the best fodder crop for hydroponic green fodder potential at CSI, NARC, Islamabad under laboratory conditions in which comparative study of green fodder was done on seven treatments with three replications in plastic trays of size 12x18 inches. This research study was performed in completely randomized design (CRD). The temperature during experiment was (30 ± 10C). The treatments were T1=Maize (300 g), T2=Oat (300 g), T3 Sorghum, T4=Maize+Oat (150+150 g), T5=Oat+Sorghum (150+150 g), T6=Millet+Oat (150+150 g) and T7=Maize+Sorghum (150+150 g). The water was applied three times a day and the temperature was also noted thrice a day. The results revealed that maximum amount of green fresh produce were recorded as for millets+oat, maize and oat with 888.00 g, 883.53 g, and 727.21 green fresh yield/tray respectively. From the current study it is concluded that producing green fodder in indoor condition maize and oat may be used as they produce more green fodder. Further it is stated that combination of maize and oat may be used for better production and water use efficiency under hydroponic condition.