Production and Quality of 15 Days Ages of Corn Herbage as an Alternative Concentrate Ingredient for Young Calves Diet

Abstract

Feed takes 60% of production cost. Corn herbage can give high quality feed especially young forage because it contains high protein and it low lignification content. The objectives of this research are to get a methods of high quality forage production to increase cost feed efficiency, and to get an alternative concentrate for calves. This research is divided into three steps of experiment. The first experiment, analyzing production and nutrient corn herbage in 15 days ages; in the second, production of corn herbage and observe the effect of corn herbage on the calves; and third, analyzing forage production cost and compared it to concentrate cost. The Factorial Randomized Complete Design was selected for these experiments. The parameter including dry matter, nutrient contains, organic matter coefficient, palatability, and economic analyzis. The results showed that corn herbage production can did in small box. A tretment by soil medium and hydrophonic nutrient give dry matter production is 136 g DM/m2, protein contained i.e: 18,30% and organic matter coefficient is 68%, fresh forage is very palatable and feed cost is Rp 858,-. It makes the corn herbage available to use as alternative concentrate.