Varietal Differences of Nutrient Quality of Rape in Spring Sowing

This study was conducted to investigate the possibility that oil seed rape could be used as a forage fodder crop and to select the most suitable variety of forage rape at the southern area of Korea, Two varieties of oil seed rape currently grown for oil production and six introduced varieties of forage rape with relatively high yield and high nutritional value were grown at the same condition and their nutritional value were observed in Spring. Generally, rape was considered as a useful forage fodder crop with high content of crude protein and low contents of NDF, ADF, hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin. Differences in mean values of the above characters between two groups of rape were not statistically significant. Velox showed significantly higher content of crude protein and significantly lower contents of NDF, ADF, hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin compared with other varieties of forage rape in spring. Rape was relatively high in IVDMD compared with other forage fodder crops, and forage rape was more or less in IVDMD and DDMW than oil seed rape. Velox was the highest in IVDMD and DDMW among the varieties of forage rape in Spring, in this experiment.