PF 31. Forage trees evaluation and agronomy in Cuba

Abstract

Some experiments, mainly, in the Experimental Station of Grasses and Forages «Indio Hatuey,» Matanzas were analyzed. Upon evaluating 109 accesions of Leucaena under cutting, it was obtained that accesions CIAT-17948 and 18433 (L. leucocephala) and CIAT-17238 (L. macrophylla) presented a good behavior like multipurpose trees (forage, firewood and shade) while in another work with other species of forage trees was selected L. leucocephala CIAT-17948 as the specie more consumed and with better grazing behavior.The analysis of two experiments, under grazing conditions, where were combined L. leucocephala with several herbaceous legumes allowed to infer that Leucaena presented a great stability in the two cycles of grazing studied (three years) but the initial population of herbaceous legumes diminished drastically. In other experiments on cutting management in the forage production of trees of L. leucocephala, it was found that it is probable cut in November or December in order to obtain productions of edible biomass superiors to 1.38 t of DM/ha in the dry season; the good cutting height of L. leucocephala and A. lebbeck it is 150 cm. With concerning the seed production of A. lebbeck was obtained that in the low densities of plants (20 plants/ m2) were gotten the best seed yields with 245 and 977 kg/ha in the second and third year, respectively; the most adequate method in order to break the hard coats of the seeds of several legumes trees was introduce them in water to 80 °C during two minutes.