Effects of Soil Tillage and Foliar Fertilization on Biomass Yield of Post - Harvest Seeded Sorghum Cultivars

Recent climate changes lead toward possibility of using longer period of warmer temperatures after winter crops harvest (such as wheat, barley, oilseed rape, etc.) for establishing post - harvest crop, such is sorghum, which can produce significant biomass, useful both for feed and bioenergy, even in drier summers, with reduced soil tillage preparation. The trial was set up in Poljanci, Croatia, in years 2015 and 2016 as a split - split - plot design with foliar fertilizers and sorghum cultivars treatments, estab lished by two soil tillage treatments (SD - single and MD - multiple disk harrowing ) after winter barley harvest in mid - July, and picked before autumn frosts at the end of November. Foliar fertilizers treatments were C) Control (no fertilization), B) Biologica l (Condi agro) and M) Mineral (EcoTop Folimax) foliar fertilizers. Cultivars used in trial were KSH3723, KSH3724, Lemnos, Leonie, Merlin, Sammos, Santos, Sole, Tarzan and Zerberus. Foliar fertilizer treatments B and M showed trend of higher dried biomass y ield 7 and 11% in comparison with C, respectively. Trend was higher at fresh biomass yield, where B and M scored 12 and 22% higher than C, respectively. There were no statistical differences between soil tillage treatments. The highest fresh biomass yield was recorded for Leonie (32933 kg ha - 1 ), followed by Lemnos (27467 kg ha - 1 ) and KSH3724 (26600 kg ha - 1 ), whereas the lowest yield was recorded for Zerberus (19600 kg ha - 1 ).