TITLE:
Energy Values of Registered Corn Forage Hybrids in France over the Last 20 Years Rose in a Context of Maintained Yield Increase
AUTHORS:
Aurélie Baldy, Marie-Pierre Jacquemot, Yves Griveau, Cyril Bauland, Matthieu Reymond, Valérie Mechin
KEYWORDS:
Maize, Forage, UFL Value, Yield, Breeding
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.8 No.6,
May
27,
2017
ABSTRACT: The cultivation
of corn silage has developed in France since the 1970s to reach 1.5 million of hectares
nowadays. Since 1998, a feeding value criterion (namely UFL for “Unité Fourrage
Laitière”) has been taken into
account to register forage varieties in the French forage maize hybrids catalog
in addition to other criteria related to plant agronomical performances such as
yield, earliness and lodging resistance. It is frequently stated that the improvement
of plant’s agronomic performances would led to a decline in forage energy value.
Decline of “Unité Fourrage Laitière” values has been repeatedly reported and the
expected increase was not yet visible in 2002. In the present study, a set 47 early
and mid-early hybrids commercialized in France between 1958 and 2015 has been cultivated
in 3 locations in France. “Unité Fourrage Laitière” values and yield have been estimated
in order to shed light on the evolution of feeding value criteria during this period
and to conclude on the evolution of “Unité Fourrage Laitière” values since the introduction
of this criterion for registration. Results obtained in our study demonstrated a
recent rise in “Unité Fourrage Laitière” value in a context of strong yield increase.
This increase was not necessarily attributable to high cob proportion in the harvested
silage. Breeder’s work since the 2000’s
has succeeded to offer hybrids that recover “Unité Fourrage
Laitière” values similar to
the ones of hybrids from the 1960’s (Royal, 1960, 91 UFL/100 kg DM). We propose to accentuate this effort targeting the enhancement
of lignocellulosic cell wall digestibility to breed for future forage maize hybrids.