Nutritional dynamics in some forage weeds regarding to the phenological stages

Weeds could replace the cultivated fodders in case of fodder shortage. But most of farmers are not aware about the potential of traditional weeds in croplands. Thus, an experiment was conducted to estimate the nutritional quality of some forage weeds with respect to their phonological development. Quantitative and qualitative parameters were recorded and analyzed statistically by analysis of variance technique and means of treatments were compared by least significant difference test. Qualitative traits of selected weeds were determined through the methods developed by The Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC). The results showed that the quantitative traits of weeds differ from each other. It was found that the moisture decreased from vegetative (86.13-90.92%) to post reproductive stage (86.77-73.56%) and crude protein decreased from vegetative (16.95-23.40%) to post reproductive stage (11.52-15.09%) in all weeds. Similarly ash contents decreased from vegetative (13.72-23.40%) to post reproductive stage (9.26-13.11%) in all weeds. The crude fats were nearly similar in all stages (1.75-2.00%). Dry matter and crude fiber increased (9.08-13.87 to 13.23-26.44% and 9.86-21.95 to 21.58-31.63%, respectively) from vegetative to post reproductive stage. Overall results declared that the biomass produced by weeds was a luxurious source for livestock production during the vegetative stage of growth as the nutritional quality decreased from vegetative to post reproductive stages. Further research is needed to explore the forage quality of all common weeds present in croplands.