It is a well accepted fact that feeding dairy animals is
incomplete without including green fodder in their diet. Green fodders are
staple feed for dairy animals. Dairy animals producing up to 12-15 liters milk
per day can be maintained by feeding green fodders. Inclusion of green fodders
in ration of dairy animals decreases amount of concentrate feeding and thus
increases profit. Therefore, for economical and sustainable dairy farming,
fodder production round the year is highly essential.
As an alternative to conventional method of green fodder
production, hydroponics technology is coming up to grow fodder for farm
animals. Green fodders produced by growing seeds without soil but in water or
nutrients rich solutions are known as hydroponics green fodder
In simple way we can say that a hydroponic fodder system
usually consists of a framework of shelves on which plastic trays are stacked.
After soaking overnight, a layer of seeds is spread over the base of the
trays. During the growing period, the
seeds are kept moist, but not saturated. They are supplied with moisture
usually via spray irrigation. Holes in the trays facilitate drainage of excess
water. The seeds will usually sprout within 8 to 12 hours after soaking and in
7 days have produced a 8 to 10 inch high grass mat.
Hydroponic fodder is much more easily digestible, full of
nutrients and enzymes that the energy spent on this digestion process would be
far less with the resultant extra energy being diverted to milk production and
growth.
Compared to conventional methods of growing fodder,
hydroponic fodder requires lesser space and produces highly nutritious fodder
than soil farming.
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