The intercropping system has been used to produce grain and forage, but few trials have been conducted with sorghum in the Central-West region of Brazil. Therefore, the objective this study was to identify, in the off-season cultivation, the intercropping of sorghum and brachiaria that provides higher grain, dry matter (straw) and crude protein (forage), yieds with two cuttings in off-season brachiaria . The field trial was installed in RioVerde-GO, March 5, 2009. The experiment was arranged in a randomized complete block design in a factorial scheme 2x3+1+3, corresponding to two sowing depths of brachiaria (2 and 10 cm) and three species (Brachiaria decumbens, Brachiaria brizantha cv.Maranduand and B. ruziziensis) sowed in the interrow of DKB 599 grain sorghum. In addition, four treatments corresponding to one sorghum monoculture and three to each brachiaria species were also installed. The intercrop of sorghum with brachiaria in the interrow had potential to produce grain (except the intercropping with the B.decumbens, sown at the depth of 10 cm, and with the B.ruziziensis, at 2 cm), dry matter and crude protein, showing the viability of the no-tillage cultivation in the Central-West region of Brazil.
Sorghum bicolor; yield; forage specie; no-tillage; off-season cultivation; succession crop
