Abstract Drought-tolerant forage crops have huge development potential in drylands taking into account the current global challenges (climate change, natural resources overexploitation and increasing food demand). However, little is known about the trade-off among yield, nutritional quality, and soil water consumption for dryland forage farming production in semi-arid regions. This research compared the two-year yield and soil water consumption characteristics of sweet sorghum (Sorghum dochna), sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense) and forage maize (Zea mays) under natural rainfall condition. The soil water content up to 200 cm soil depth –at 10-cm intervals– and dry matter yield of the different forage crops were evaluated in a set of plots in 2017 and 2018, and the nutritional quality of these crops were measured in 2018. Three replicate plots were established for each forage crop. Results showed that the neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) contents of sudangrass were significantly lower than those of sweet sorghum and forage maize (P

中文翻译：

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半干旱地区旱地牧草生产与土壤水分消耗的权衡

摘要 考虑到当前的全球挑战（气候变化、自然资源过度开发和不断增加的粮食需求），耐旱饲料作物在旱地具有巨大的发展潜力。然而，对于半干旱地区旱地牧草生产的产量、营养质量和土壤水分消耗之间的权衡知之甚少。本研究比较了自然降雨条件下甜高粱（Sorghum dochna）、苏丹草（Sorghum sudanense）和饲用玉米（Zea mays）的两年产量和土壤耗水特征。2017 年和 2018 年在一组样地中评估了不同饲料作物的土壤含水量高达 200 厘米土壤深度（以 10 厘米为间隔）和干物质产量，并在 2018 年测量了这些作物的营养质量。每种饲料作物建立三个重复样地。结果表明，苏丹草中性洗涤纤维（NDF）和酸性洗涤纤维（ADF）的含量显着低于甜高粱和饲用玉米（P