Summary:

Drought is an important factor that causes a decrease in yield and quality in regions where second crop silage plants are grown. One of the biggest problems in animal husbandry is feed. Especially silage feed production tends to decrease in areas with increasing water deficit and where water needs cannot be met. The high water requirement of the corn plant requires irrigation in arid and semi-arid regions. However, in order to continue the production of silage fodder in regions where water resources are insufficient with the increase of drought, it will be necessary to grow forage plants that can be an alternative to corn plant. In previous studies, it has been discussed whether the sorghum plant is an alternative to the corn plant. The aim of this study is to determine the drought sensitivity index based on the yield values of both plants in wet and dry conditions. Thus, it will be determined whether the sorghum plant will be an alternative to the corn plant in terms of drought. The identification and selection of drought-resistant cultivars and species is possible using various indices. In this study, second crop silage maize and sorghum crops were grown in Kahramanmaraş conditions for two years (2018 and 2019), dry and irrigated. Stress sensitivity index (SSI) was used to determine the drought tolerance of silage maize and sorghum crops. 'Colonia' variety was used for silage corn and 'Es Foehn' variety was used for sorghum. When the STI values are examined, the corn and sor-ghum values for 2018 were 0.55 and 0.53, respectively, while the d values for 2019 were found as 0.33 in corn and 0.54 in sorghum. these values are very close to the YSI values. While the 2018 values in both indices were not determinative in terms of drought resistance, the value of sorghum in 2019 was 64% higher than corn (this value was found to be 61% for YSI). This also showed that there is a direct correlation between YSI and STI indices.