Production and nutritional composition of forage of oat cultivars cultivated singly or intercropped under successive harvests

Winter crops have a high potential for forage production, which responds to different harvest strategies, requiring research to determine the best number of harvests combined with good production. The grass intercropping system is still poorly studied, so this study aimed to evaluate the productive and bromatological characteristics of winter forages subjected to six successive cuts. Different winter forages were grown singly or intercropped, according to the treatments TamPic: 90% GMX Tambo white oats + 10% GMX Picasso black oats; InvPicGau: 90% GMX Invernia white oats + 5% GMX Picasso black oats + 5% UPF Gaud & eacute;ria white oats; TamGau: 30% GMX Tambo white oats + 70% UPF Gaud & eacute;ria white oats, and Pic: 100% GMX Picasso black oats. On the fifth cut, the oats intercropping allowed a greater participation of leaves and a lower participation of stems in the plant's physical structure compared to the Pic treatment. The neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber contents were lower for the oat intercropping, which varied from (48.09% to 51.40% and 32.29% to 34.39%, respectively) compared to the single cultivation (54.84% and 38.32% respectively). The ruminal degradation of intercropped oats was higher than that of single cultivation. The sixth harvest had the worst results for fiber content and ruminal degradation. The intercropping of the evaluated oats is recommended because they showed satisfactory morphological and chemical characteristics, and up to the fifth cut, better chemical composition and greater ruminal degradation of the forage, indicating nutritional potential.