Abstract

TORAL PEREZ, Odalys C  and  IGLESIAS GOMEZ, Jesús M. Selectivity of potentially useful arboreal species for livestock systems. Zootecnia Trop. [online]. 2008, vol.26, n.3, pp.197-200. ISSN 0798-7269.

The objective of this work was to measure the selectivity of grazing cattle on promising tree species. A completely randomized design with eight repetitions per accession was used. Grazing was performed twice during the year, once in the dry season and once in the rainy season, for five consecutive years. By means of a scale from I to III, the highly, moderately, and non browsed species in each season were determined. The average height of the trees was 1.69 m for the dry season, and 1.84 m for the rainy season each year. The prevailing pasture in the herbaceous stratum was guinea grass (Panicum maximum). In order to determine the variability reached among accessions, a principal component analysis was carried out, while for grouping the treatments with similar characteristics, regarding the scale of values, a cluster analysis was used. The highly browsed species for both periods were 12 accessions of L. leucocephala, L. macrophylla CIAT-17240, B. purpurea, A. lebbeck, and G. sepium. The moderately browsed species were six accessions of Albizia, four of Bauhinia, E. contortisiliquum, G. arborea, and L. latisiliqua. Not browsed were B. reticulata, C. festuca, M. oleifera, C. sappan, and C. festuca x C. nudosa. It is concluded that the species selection did not vary largely between seasons. The animals browsed more preferably the ecotypes of L. leucocephala and the specie Albizia lebbeck.

Keywords : selectivity in grazing; trees and shrubs; browsing.

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