Sorghum-soybean intercropping. I. Production of forage of sorghum hybrids and soybean cultivars, intercropped on the line, in two cutting systems

Aiming to select sorghum and soybean cultivars of best forage yield in the intercropping on the line, a trial was conducted in 1996/1997, at the Department of Agriculture on the campus of the Universidade Federal de Lavras, in Lavras, MG, Brazil, on a Distrophic Red Dusky Latosol. The experimental design utilized was that of randomized blocks in factorial scheme 2x4x4+4 with three replications, being made up of two cutting systems (a single cutting, close-cut to the soil, of both crops at the R5 stage of soybean and a two-cutting system: the first done at 60 days after emergence at 30cm from the soil and the second after regrowth of the plants, close-cut to the soil at the same time of the cutting of the first system), four soybean cultivars (CAC-1, Doko RC, UFV-16 and UFV-17) and four hybrids of forage sorghum (AG 2002, AG 2006, BR 601 and CMSXS 756), and four hibrids of sorghum in monoculture. The one cutting system was superior than the two cutting system in relation of green mass and dry matter. The grude protein was superioty in the two cutting system. Use of the intercropping on the line provided greater yield total crude portein as compared with monoculture, being that the combinations UFV-16 and UFV-17 x AG 2002 and CAC-1 x AG 2006 were the ones which stood out the most to the one-cutting system. In the two-cutting system, Doko RC x AG 2006 and BR 601 and UFV-16 x BR 601 stood out. Under monoculture and intercropping on the line condition, the sorghum hybrid which presented the highest yield of green mass, dry matter and total crude protein was AG 2002.

regrowth; monoculture; dry matter