COMPARISON OF FORAGE YIELD AND NUTRIENT QUALITY OF HIGHLAND OAT VARIETIES IN BHUTAN

Abstract

The on-farm experiments were conducted to evaluate forage yield and nutritional quality of two promising highland oat varieties namely Gansu 2 and Qingyin oats under the farmers’ field management conditions in Bhutan with stampede oats variety as control. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. The variety Gansu oat 2 produced significantly higher green forage yield than variety stampede. However, there was no significance difference in essential nutrient (Crude protein) content between new and existing oat varieties. The study concluded that variety Gansu oat 2 is suitable for forage production under temperate and sub-alpine climatic conditions and is a viable alternate oat variety to address winter fodder shortage in highland districts of Bhutan