Title: Morphogenetic and structural traits and herbage accumulation in Aruana guinea grass pastures subject to frequencies and severities of defoliation by sheep

 

The knowledge of the ecophysiology is contributing to the understanding of tropical forage plant responses to grazing management and adoption of management techniques. Therefore, the objective of this study, conducted in an area belonging to the Department of Animal Production and Food Science Center Agroveterinary State University of Santa Catarina, Campus of Lages, in the period January 2009 to May 2009, was to analyze and describe the morphogenetic and structural characteristics, herbage accumulation and canopy structure in pastures of aruana guineagrass undergoing frequencies and severities of grazing by sheep on rotational grazing. The treatments consisted of grazing when grass reached 95 or 98 % interception of incident light (IL) to heights of residue 10 and 15 cm, and were allocated to experimental units (plots of 196 m2 ) in a complete randomized design in a 2×2 factorial arrangement with three replications. The variables evaluated were: leaf appearance rate (LAR), leaf elongation rate (LER), stem elongation rate (SER), phyllochron (FIL), leaf life span (LLS), live leaf number (NFV) in senescence (NFS) and expanding (NFE) per tiller, final leaf length (LOA) and stems (CFC), tiller density (DPP), Leaf area index (LAI) and net forage accumulation and morphological composition of the pastures in the pre-and postgrazing. The pre-grazing height of the canopy was stable during the experiment and around 30 and 40 cm for treatments of 95 and 98 % of IL, respectively, indicating potential for the development and use of management practices based on goals of pasture condition. The evaluated traits showed strong influence of the frequencies and severities of grazing adopted throughout seasons, indicating that the capacity and speed recovery of aruana guineagrass pastures after grazing depends primarily on grazing management and environmental conditions. Grazing management for aruana guineagrass would be more appropriate with the grazing to 95 % of canopy light interception, pastures with 30 cm high pre-grazing, and interrupted when the sward reach a residual of 15 cm. Even with higher stem elongation in relation to the residue of 10 cm, is more efficient and profitable due to the higher accumulation of leaf blade. Furthermore, it encourages its early and more rapid return to production. There were no differences in herbage accumulation rate between the combinations 95/10, 95/15 and 98/15. Treatment effects were progressive and cumulative, resulting in higher rates of herbage accumulation in 95/15 compared to other treatments, particularly in 98/10. Frequent grazing (95 % LI) resulted in better control of stem elongation, a smaller proportion of dead material and weeds a higher proportion of leaf strata grazing than pastures grazed less frequently (98 % LI). In the pre-grazing, only time of year influenced the 17 herbage mass. In the post-grazing, the herbage mass was lower for the treatments of 95 % than 98 % of IL, but with greater mass of leaves and smaller stalks, weeds and dead material. The results indicate that during the lowering of the canopy, grazing more frequent and less severe provided for animals to obtain forage with high leaf mass and low mass of stems, which should increase the nutritional value of forage consumed.

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Keywords: Ecophysiology; Growth and senescence; Grazing management; Light Interception

 

Author: Guilherme Doneda Zanini

Leader: André Fischer Sbrissia

Dissertation (Masters in Animal Science)

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Title: Morphogenesis, accumulation dynamics and morphological and chemical composition of forage in annual ryegrass pastures under intermittent grazing

 

The morphogenesis, structure, composition, morphology and chemical composition of pasture change according to the rhythm of grazing demonstrating that the grazing animal has great influence on pasture ecosystem. Thus, this experiment aimed to evaluate the effects of frequency and severity of grazing on the morphological composition, morphogenetic and structural traits and nutritive value of forage throughout the growing season annual ryegrass grazed by sheep. For this we used a completely randomized design in a 2x2 factorial design with three replications where the treatments were defined by two defoliation frequencies, characterized by two pre-grazing heights of 15 and 25 cm and the severities of two stubble heights of 4 and 8 cm. We used 2412 m2 area in Santa Catarina State University divided into 12 units of 201 m2. The morphological composition of forage was performed cutting the pastures at two points per experimental unit for each 5 cm in a square frame of 25 cm2 area each time before the entry of animals. The material was separated into leaf, pseudostem, dead material and weed and dried in a forced oven air circulation at 65 ° for 48 hours or until constant weight. After being removed from the oven the samples had their weight quantified. The forage used to analyze the chemical composition was obtained from the material to determine the morphological composition. The material was separated by grazing cycle. The evaluations were: crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF). To evaluate the technique was used morphogenesis of tillers marked in each grazing cycle, where they measured the length of leaf blade, pseudostem length, extended tiller number and leaf senescence live on 20 tillers per replicate. To determine the stability index were fixed three rings of PVC per experimental unit and every 10 days the new tillers were marked with plastic rings of different color and the dead were removed from the rings. There was an effect of frequency (P <0.05) for crude protein (CP) neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) where the highest values were observed in higher frequencies of grazing with the highest values for CP and the lowest frequencies with the highest values for both NDF and ADF. There was significant leaves herbage accumulation rate of severity, with higher values observed in pastures with greater residue (8 cm). For overall growth rate (pseudostem + leaves) was no effect of frequency and severity (P <0.05) being the treatments are less frequent and less severe with the highest growth rates showing that this difference was due to the higher proportion of pseudostem in these treatments. For leaf appearance rate also was no effect of frequency and severity (P <0.05), but the highest rates for this variable were found in treatments of higher frequency and greater severity. The annual ryegrass was shown to be a very flexible plant with a broad opportunity since the frequencies and severities imposed did not affect its morphogenesis and structural traits. Its stability index and tiller density were not affected so will undermine the persistence of the species.

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Keywords: Annual ryegrass, grazing management, sward height, morphogenesis

 

Author: Gabriela Trevisan Santos

Leader: André Fischer Sbrissia

Dissertation (Masters in Animal Science)