Dual purpose barley culture

Abstract

Dual-purpose cereals culturally provide the opportunity to graze a crop during the vegetative phase, and still harvest grain yield at the end of the growing season. It can also help to face climatic changes like frost or dry conditions risk. The aim of the study was to determine the benefits of a dual-purpose barley culture in relation to livestock feed, human nutrition, risk mitigation, and whether a malting variety can also be used for dual-purpose use. A field experiment was carried out in the farm of Nubaria Agricultural Research Station, El-Behera Governorate, Egypt, using five barley varieties during the two successive growing seasons of 2019/2020 - 2020/2021 for dual purpose utilization. No significant differences between the two seasons. The cutting treatment revealed significant or highly significant differences on all studied traits except number of tillers.m -2 and number of spikes.m -2 . Green forage weight was highly significantly affected. Concerning normal cultivation, the differences among the five barley cultivars were highly significant for all studied traits except number of spikes m -2 . Significant or highly significant differences were found among studied traits concerning cultivars and cutting treatment interaction. Normal cultivation conditions also exhibited that Giza 132 gave the highest grain yield followed by Giza133 and Giza 126. While Giza 2000 gave the heaviest green forage weight followed by Giza 133 and Giza 126 under dual purpose utilization. Moreover, under dual purpose utilization, Giza 126 and Giza 2000 were the best barley cultivars for both green forage and grain yield production. The existing improved dual barley variety conserve the purpose in specified environment as alternative for the green forage demand without sacrificing the grain yield in the rainfed, arid, and semi-arid regions of Egypt