Strengths
High dry matter yields.
Very palatable, high quality forage.
Drought tolerant.
Limitations:
Needs high fertility.
Matures rapidly, becoming stemmy.
Usually needs to be planted vegetatively
Feeding value
Extremely palatable to all classes of stock when provided young and leafy
Note: There is great variation in nutritional value depending on the stage of growth of the napier grass. Young regrowth of about 6 weeks can have crude protein of about 10%, falling to 7.6% at 10 weeks growth. With good supply of nitrogen, protein levels can rise to almost 20% and digestible energy levels can vary from 68-74% in the same growth period. Once Napier starts growing stems, palatability and nutritional value quickly decreases to become almost value less for livestock.
Should not be a sole diet, i.e be fed in mixture with other supplementary feeds such protein forages and concentrates to sustain high production.
Production potential
Dry matter
Yields depend on fertility, moisture, temperature and management. DM yields of 10-30 t/ha/yr common, (and up to 85 t/ha/yr) if well fertilised; 2-10 t/ha/yr if unfertilised. More frequent cuts (up to 45 days) give less dry matter, but better leaf production than infrequent cuts.
Animal production
with dry matter, animal production from napier grass depends on growing conditions. Liveweight gains of 1 kg/hd/day during the growing season and 480 kg/ha/yr, and milk yields of >11 kg/day (4% fat) are achievable. A good Napier fodder is capable of carrying 2-7 beasts/ha in a grazed system.
Companion species Grasses:
Not sown with other grasses.Legumes: Normally not planted with legumes, but will grow with vigorous twining legumes such as Desmodium spp. or with the shrub/tree legume, Leucaena leucocephala
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