Salt-Tolerant Sorghum as Animal Feed : Effects of Feeding Salt Tolerant Sorghum Forage on Performance, Carcass and Meat Quality Characteristics of Omani Sheep

There is an international need for cheap alternative forage crops that can tolerate high level of soil and water salinity. A lot of marginal and salt affected lands can be used to produce salt tolerant forage crops which might offer a good resource for animal feeding. Sorghum irrigated with saline water up to 9 dS/m of salinity might be used as a source of roughage for feeding sheep without negative effects on health, growth performance, feed intake, body composition, carcass characteristics or meat quality. Salt-tolerant sorghum may be successfully and economically produced under arid conditions using marginal lands and saline water.