Abstract:

This paper reports observations on the growth performance， forage yield and quality of 22 oat varieties planted in Huang-Huai-Hai area of China from 2018 to 2019， conducted to identify the most suitable oat varieties for this region. Multivariate evaluation was used to analyze the data gained from the experiment. It was found that the variation coefficients among the 22 oat varieties were more than 15% in the ratio of leaf/whole plant dry weight and spike/whole plant dry weight， and those were less than 10% in the ratio of stem/whole plant dry weight and plant height. Hence， the differences in growth pattern between varieties were mainly shown in the leaves and spikes. A cluster analysis of 13 growth and nutrient indexes was carried out， the results showed that 22 oat varieties could be clustered as four groups： The first group was the high quality group with high relative feed value （RFV）， the second group was the poor quality group with low RFV， the third group was the high plant height group， and the fourth group was the high protein group with abundant leaves. The groups did not differ significantly in forage yield （P>0.05）. However， there were significant differences in the proportion of plant parts and crude protein （CP）， neutral detergent fiber， acid detergent fiber， acid detergent lignin and RFV （P<0.05）. Correlation analysis showed that plant height， the ratio of leaf/whole plant dry weight and spike/whole plant dry weight were significantly positively correlated with hay yield， forage CP and RFV （P<0.05）， which indicated that leaf and spike played an important role in oat forage quality. Using Grey correlation analysis， varieties Baylor， Souris， and Linna from group I， and ESK， Molasses and Haymaker from group IV had higher Equal-weighted correlation degree and Weighted correlation degree， and were identified as suitable for planting in the Huang-Huai-Hai area of China.

Key words: oat varieties, agronomic straits, forage yield, forage quality, multivariate evaluation