Abstract

OLIVERA CASTRO, Yuseika; SANCHEZ SANTANA, Tania  and  TESTINO, Luigi. Morphobotanical characterization of the prevailing species in a silvopastoril system with improved grasses and legumes after ten years of exploitation. Zootecnia Trop. [online]. 2008, vol.26, n.3, pp.323-326. ISSN 0798-7269.

With the objective of determining whether in a silvopastoral system (formed by an association of improved grasses and L. leucocephala cv. Cunningham) the morphobotanical characteristics of the predominant species were maintained, a characterization study was performed after 10 years of exploitation. Several quantitative descriptors were used for the grasses as well as the legumes that were present in higher quantity in the system, which were determined through the botanical composition of the pastureland. To process the results, a principal component analysis was used. The botanical composition of the pasture allowed proving the existence of two predominant species: Panicum maximum cv. Likoni and Leucaena leucocephala cv. Cunningham. Both species showed high variability accumulated with regards to the indicators measured: 93.86 and 94.73% for the grass and the legume, respectively. This result is considered to be an encouraging symptom, because in this system with more than a decade of exploitation the morphological characteristics of the two most representatives species are maintained. The characterization activity is important for determining the morphobotanical stability of plants. It is recommended to use these measurements in similar studies.

Keywords : morphobotanical characterization; silvopastoral system.

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