ANIM2501 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Convertible Husbandry, Trifolium Repens, Canker
Improved Pasture Species: Legumes
Anatomy of a Legume
- Distinguishing feature: White clover
- Seed pods
- Can have rhizomes and stolons
Benefits of sowing legumes
- Increased forage quality
- Higher digestibility
- Higher forage yield
- Improve soil nitrogen
- Prevent excessive drainage
- Legumes hold feed quality longer than grass species
Tropical Legumes:
1. Centurion Centro
Strengths
- High quality forage for pastures and ley farming, production of hay (mainly used for baling)
- Well adapted to dry tropics, tolerates seasonal floodin and adapts to a wide range of soil
conditions including heavy clays
- Self-regenerating annual that grows and spreads rapidly
- High seed production
Limitations
- Being an annual, its persistance depends on an adequate soil seed reserves
- For ley farming, suysceptible to nematodes
- Not adapted to fertile soil
2. Carribbean Stylo
Strengths
- Can be oversown into native pasture country or grown with sown grasses
- Grows on low fertility soils (low P)
- High persistent under grazing
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Document Summary
Legumes hold feed quality longer than grass species. High quality forage for pastures and ley farming, production of hay (mainly used for baling) Well adapted to dry tropics, tolerates seasonal floodin and adapts to a wide range of soil conditions including heavy clays. Being an annual, its persistance depends on an adequate soil seed reserves. Not adapted to fertile soil: carribbean stylo. Can be oversown into native pasture country or grown with sown grasses. Grows on low fertility soils (low p) Restricted to tropical environments: caatinga stylo. More cold tolerant than s. scabra or s. hamata. Tolerant of alkaline, sodic, saline and heavy clay soils. Combines well with grass pastures in sub-humid, moderate fertility environments. Relatively low dm productivity in vigorous grass pastures. Limited potential as a ley legume species due to low dm yields, high and early seeding. Highly specific in its rhizobium requirements (need to get specific strains for it to fix nitrogen)
