Influence of Cutting Interval on Yield and Quality of Purple Guinea Grass (\u3cem\u3ePanicum maximum\u3c/em\u3e TD58) under irrigation

Most of dairy farmers in the northeast of Thailand are smallholders. They have limited pasture area led to lack of good quality roughage throughout the year, especially during the dry season. Farmers usually fed their cattle with agricultural by products, which have low quality and supplemented with commercial concentrate feed. It leads to high milk production cost and more problems of cattle performance. It is necessary to develop and improve the feed quality and quantity, especially pasture, the cheapest and major source of cattle feed. Due to the limited pasture area, intensive pasture system is recommended. They need a suitable technology to manage a small area to produce enough good quality roughage to meet the needs of the dairy cattle. Therefore, it is necessary to use high yielding varieties of forage crops with an appropriate management to achieve high productivity and quality throughout the years. Horne and Stur (1999) suggest that purple guinea grass (Panicum maximum TD58) grows well in moderate to high fertility soils with a good drainage and response to water and fertilizer as well. This experiment was conducted on the influence of cutting interval to improve yield and quality of purple guinea grass under intensive management of nitrogen in combination with manure and irrigation during the rainy and dry seasons. Its aim to be beneficial to forage crop production and use as a guide for the efficiently area utilization to forage preparation for dairy farmers