An Evaluation of Urea Treatment of Sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) Stovers Using in-sacco Techniques

Serghum stover (Sorghum vulgare) was treated with 4,5 and 6% urea each at 40, 50 and 60% moisture and stored for 14 or 28 d. The mean CP% increased from 3.9 in untreated stover to 15.2 and 14.1 at the end of 14 and 28 d storage periods, respectively. The dried sample of stover treated with 6% urea and 40% moisture combination contained maximum CP (14.3%). Treatment with urea increased digestibility of DM, CF and CP atall combinations. The degradabilities of DM, CF and CP on treatment with 4% urea and 40% moisture treated stover, stored for 14 d after 72 h of incubation were 65.7, 71.3 and 81, 4%, respectively while in untreated stover it was 52.1 56.1 and 28.9%. The estimation of eflective degradability of DM CF and CP after applying exponential equation for the chosen combination worked out to be 35.5 33.5 and 61.3% respectively as against the values of 24.5 31.2 and 16.2% for untreated stover.