Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2017
Pea-wheat bi-crop silages were reported to have moderate nutritive value when the proportion of peas in the sward was less than 200 g/kg (Adesogan et al., 1999). These authors also suggested that improvements in the digestibility, intake and nitrogen (N) balance of the forages may result from increasing the proportion of peas in the sward. This experiment was designed to examine this theory by determining the in vivo apparent digestibility, N retention and voluntary feed intake (VFI) in sheep of pea-wheat bi-crop silages containing different ratios of peas to wheat and harvested at two stages of growth.