New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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Forage production and quality of serradella in mild winter areas in north-west Spain

I. IGLESIAS*
J. LLOVERAS+

Investigaciones Agrarias de Mabegondo
Apartado 10
15080, La Coruña, Spain

Present address:

*Escuela Politécnica Superior, Campus Universitario, 27002 Lugo, Spain.

+UdL-IRTA, Av Rovira Roure 177, 25198 Lleida, Spain.

Abstract  Forage production potential and nutritive value of pink serradella (Ornithopus sativus) from New Zealand and from the Atlantic coastal areas of Galicia (north-west Spain, south-west Europe) were compared. The experiments were conducted in the high rainfall and mild winter areas of Galicia, where this minor legume has traditionally been grown on neutral to acidic sandy soils for hay and for green fodder production. The average forage dry matter (DM) yields ranged from 4.2 to 4.3 t DM ha^-1 in April and 5.6 to 6.1 t DM ha^-1 in May. At the May harvest the accumulated growing degree day units (base 10) ranged from 448 to 497. `Grasslands Koha', a New Zealand variety of European origin, was the highest yielder, suggesting that serradella plant material from south-west Europe may be adapted to some areas of New Zealand and vice-versa. The average decline in the forage quality of serradella from the vegetative stage to flowering stage was 0.71 g kg^-1 d^-1 in crude protein and 1.42 g kg^-1 d^-1 in in vitro organic matter digestibility. These quality reductions are lower than the values reported for some other forage crops. This important feature could be used to maximise production of high quality spring forage.

Keywords  Ornithopus sativus; forage quality; growth stage; harvest date; serradella cultivars

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2000, Vol. 43: 35-40

0028-8233/00/4301-0035 $7.00/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 2000

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (463K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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