A.V. FRENCH¹, P.K. O'ROURKE² and D.G. CAMERON³

¹Queensland Department of Primary Industries, P.O. Box 61, Miles, Qld, 4415.
²Queensland Department of Primary Industries, G.P.O Box 46, Brisbane, Qld, 4001.
³Formerly Queensland Department of Primary Industries, G.P.O. Box 46, Brisbane, Qld, 4001

Abstract

Three forage sorghums, Sorghum almurn cv. Crooble, S. bicolor cv. Sugardrip and Sorghum spp. hybrid cv. Zulu, were grown on a predominantly uniform textured, cracking-clay, brigalow soil and grazed at 3 stocking rates, 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5 beasts/ha, for 3 grazing seasons, 1968,1970 and 1971. Drought prevented grazing of the 1969 crop and interfered with productivity in other years.
At the lowest stocking rate, 98 to 133 days grazing were recorded, with average daily gains from 0.41 to 0.85 kg/head/day. Sugardrip gave the highest total liveweight gains. At the intermediate stocking rate, the crops were grazed for 57 to 89 days with average daily gains from 0.4 to 1.15 kg/head/day. At the heaviest stocking rates available forage was rapidly utilized and there was little effective regrowth, especially from Sugardrip.