Mississippi Warm-Season Forage Crop Variety Trials, 2013

Varieties of forage crops are evaluated every year in MAFES small-plot trials. Seed for the entries are provided by seed companies and state universities and tested at one or more locations across Mississippi. All entries from privately owned companies are tested on a fee basis. Standard varieties may be added by MAFES as a reference for comparison purposes. In addition, varieties of interest may also be added when applicable. This report contains data collected in 2013 from warm-season perennial and annual forage crops. Seeded bermudagrass yields include 3 years of data from 18 varieties. Annual warm-season grass entries include 14 varieties of sorghum and sorghum/sudangrass hybrids in the sorghum trial and 11 millet varieties in the millet trial. Seeded bermudagrass trials were only evaluated in Starkville. The annual grass trials were evaluated in Starkville, Holly Springs, and Poplarville. Seeding rates for each trial are listed in Table 1 and were adjusted for pure live seed (PLS) according to each entry germination and purity percentage. Rainfall during the growing season of 2013 is indicated in Table 2. Data presented in Tables 3–10 can be used to evaluate the performance of each forage variety within that test. Comparisons can be statistically evaluated by using the least significant difference (LSD). The LSD represents the amount of yield that must be observed between any two varieties to determine if the differences observed were due to variety variation alone.

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