FORAGE YIELD AND QUALITY DIFFERENCES OF AUTUMN AND SPRING-SOWN PEA GENOTYPES UNDER CENTRAL ANATOLIA CONDITIONS

In this study, some common forage pea cultivars (Golyazi, Ozkaynak, Taskent, Tore, and Urunlu) and a population of Ardahan were investigated during 2015 and 2016 years in Eskisehir condition to determine the forage yield and quality parameters. The fresh forage yield of autumn-sown forage pea (24,36 t/ha) was higher than the spring-sown plants (13,42 t/ha). Golyazi and Urunlu cultivars had lower fresh forage yields (14,63 and 14,81 t/ha respectively) than the other genotypes and Ozkaynak, Taskent, Tore (cvs.), and Ardahan (pop.) were statistically ranked in the same group (between 22,52 and 19,92 t/ha). The dry matter yield of forage pea genotypes did not differ significantly between the autumn and spring seasons. The highest dry matter ratio was 25,06% in Taskent while the lowest was 22,06% in Ozkaynak. The crude protein was higher at autumn sowing (21,17%) than the spring sowing (18,36%) and Ozkaynak had the highest value (21,53%) while Ardahan population was the lowest (17,76%). NDF content was higher in the spring season (37,62%) but only the difference between Taskent (37,60%) and Golyazi (34,06%) was significant among the genotypes. Variation in the ADF content was only significant among the genotypes and the difference between Taskent (33,41%) and Golyazi (31,62%) was significant only as similar to NDF. In sum, Ozkaynak, Taskent, Tore cultivars produce more yield with a satisfying quality by sowing in autumn at Eskişehir conditions, and the population of Ardahan has a high potential to develop new cultivars suitable for the region.