Red Napier - Fodder Grass Farming

About Red Napier:

Red Napier is a multi-cut hybrid green fodder grass that can be used for animals like Cow, Buffalo, Goat, Sheep, Pig, Poultry.
They are rich source of starch, protein and edible oil.
Red Napier produces good quality herbaceous fodder and is highly palatable.
Providing sufficient quantities of fodder to the milch animals will increase of milk production of the animals

Red Napier grows best on alluvial, red soils and also grows well on well drained black soils.
It does not thrive well on heavy soils, saline and alkali soils.
Sowing time will be best during July to Feburary
Seed should be sown in lines spaced at 1 feet and width at 2 feet.
Select good quality Red Napier stems with 2 nodes.
Plant the stems in the furrows at 45% slope with one node below the soil and one node above the soil
After planting the stems irrigate the soil throughly

Irrigate immediately after sowing and give life irrigation on the third day and thereafter twice a week.
Red Napier is comparatively more to sensitive to excess moist and stress.
It requires irrigation every alternative days during summer season
Irrigation will not be required during rainy season.

Red Napier responds well to farm yard manure like cow dung manure and poultry manure
Apply 2 tonnes farm yard manure per acre before planting Red Napier stems
In the absence of farm yard manure, it requires 100 kg bio fertilizer per acre.
Manure / Bio fertilizer should also be applied after 25-30 days of planting the stems

After 30 days more weeds would have grown in the farm along the the Red Napier stems.
Weeding has to be done as weeds rob the nutrients that the soil received from the fertilizer applied.
Hence weeding has to be done in the farm using hand labor or through the mechanized tools
If necessary, second spell of weeding can be done after 45 days
After completing the weeding work, Red Napier grass will grow very fast and densely.

After 45 days, Red Napier would have grown by 3 to 4 height.
Red Napier at this stage will become robust, tufted and has a vigorous root system.
They will form dense thick clumps, up to 1 m across.
The leaves will be flat, linear, and hairy at the base, 100 cm to 120 cm long, 1 cm to 5 cm wide and redish-green in color.

After 75 days Red Napier would have grown by 6 to 8 feet.
Red Napier at this stage can be harvested and can be fed to chickens, ducks, horses and rabbits
Red Napier is very palatable because the stalks are tender
Then succeeding harvests are every 60 to 70 days.
The stalks are cut close to the ground, and in no time, new shoots or ratoon will come out.

Red Napier after 90 days would have grown by 10 feet to 12 feet.
Red Napier at this stage can be harvested and can be fed to cows, buffalo and horses
Harvested Red Napier can be shredded using Chaff cutter and can be fed to cattle's
When shredded into fine particles, the same could be fed to vegetable-eating fish like tilapia and Pangasius.