Background

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) holds 53 different accessions (genotypes) of Pennisetum purpureum in its Forage Gene Bank in Addis Ababa. This collection has been assembled from several African Countries and the USA and shows considerable morphological variation. Some of the accessions were donated by the International Centre for Research in the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) following evaluation of a number of them for dry matter yield in Zimbabwe. When the project came to an end the accessions were given to ILRI for inclusion in its Forage Gene Bank together with information on their yields.

The Napier grass accessions have different agronomic characters (such as dry matter yield, plant height), nutritional characters (such as protein concentration, digestibility) and morphological characters (such as leaf length, leaf hairiness, stem thickness). Different accessions tend to be suitable for different locations, different altitudes, soil types and climates.