Effect of poultry manure and organic material on forage production and soil properties of silage corn

摘要

Corn is one of the most important forage crops for livestock production, but there is limited information on silage corn production for organic system.The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of poultry manure and organic material as an alternative of chemical fertilizer for silage corn production.The experimental layout was a randomized block design with three replications.The five treatments were: (Control) no fertilizer, (CF) chemical fertilizer, (PM) poultry manure, (OM) organic material, and (PM+OM) poultry manure and organic material.There was a treatment effect on dry matter (％DM) content and DM yield (P ＜ 0.05), and no treatment effect for ear percentage and total digestible nutrients (TDN) yield.The Control treatment showed the highest ％DM content.The OM and PM+OM treatments produced equivalent DM and TDN yields as chemical fertilizer (CF) and higher DM yields than the Control.The PM, OM, and PM+OM treatments showed higher soil pH, organic matter, Ca, Mg, and CEC in comparison to the Control and CF treatments.The results from this experiment suggest that poultry manure and organic material can both be successfully used as alternatives to chemical fertilizer for corn silage production and to improve soil properties.