The annual forage crops under dryland conditions-A Review

Selection of suitable species of forage crops along with cultivation package is a critical decision For developing of forage crops in the rainfed conditions. Overall researches on forage crop at dryland condition during last 15 years (2003-2018), accessions of indigenous and exotic germplasm of three grass pea species, two field pea, six vetch species and 15 annual medics have been evaluated at research stations of Dryland Agricultural Research and suitable species along with superior genotypes for different agro-ecological zones have been identified. Maragheh vetch with 2.5 t/ha mean dry biomass, was released for moderate and warm areas of Iran. Golsefid and Lamei form Hungarian vetch and Golshan from winter vetch with 3 t/ha dray biomass yield are suitable for fall planting at cold and moderate dryland areas and also Toloa was released with 2.8 t/h dry biomass yield for warm draland areas. Despite the superiority vetchs at cold and fall planting, it was evident that tolerance to drought condition in grasspea was more than vetch and some good promising lines for grasspea are under releasing. In addition to suitable forage cultivars for increasing yields, different mix culture systems like legume-cereal and also legume-legume was evaluated under dryland conditions, which increased the dry biomass yield up to 6 t/ha with maraghe vetch + barely and at least 20% more dry fodder yield at legume-legume mix culture. Iranian annual medics showed poor performance in rainfed conditions in spite of cold tolerance presence in some species.