RELATIVE FORAGE QUALITY OF Cenchrus purpureus AS INFLUENCED BY HARVEST AGE AND PLANT SPACING.

Planting Napier grass with wider plant spacing could allow better forage productivity, and harvesting should be best carried out at an early stage of planting for better nutrient quality. A total land area of 1196m² was used for the experiment and was laid out in a 2 x 2 factorial, arranged in a split-plot design consisting of the main plot (age at harvest) and the subplot (plant spacing). The experiment involved 4 treatments (3week, 6week age at harvest, and 1m x 1m, 1m x 0.5m plant spacing) and was replicated 5 times. The harvested samples at 3 weeks and 6 weeks were oven-dried and milled. The results showed a significant (P< 0.05) increase in the crude fibre (CF), ash, dry matter intake (DMI), relative feed value (RFV) and decrease in the crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent lignin (ADL) and hemicellulose as age at harvest increased. The grass planted using 1m x 1m plant spacing had the highest CP (17.18%), ash (14.89%), and ADL (4.86%) content and the highest value of CF (18.37%) was recorded from the grass planted with 0.5m x 1m while other parameters were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by plant spacing. Age at harvest and plant spacing had an effect on the nutrient composition of Napier grass. Grass spacing at 1m x 1m had the higher CP while the higher CF content was obtained at 1m x 0.5m.  On the other hand, as the plant advanced in age, the quality of the grass decreased.