A legume-based, pasture production strategy for acid infertile soils of tropical America
Results from a multidisciplinary effort by CIAT's Tropical Pastures Program and collaborators in Colombia, Brazil and Peru suggest the emergence of a low input soil management strategy designed to take advantage of acid soil infertility rather than overcoming it by large applications of lime and fertilizers. Legume-based pastures for beef production have comparative advantage for expanding the agricultural frontier of tropical America into its vast Oxisol-Ultisol regions. This may provide an alternative for alleviating population pressures from erosion-prone, high base status soil regions. Although not all the components of this strategy are sufficiently well known, the main ones are: 1)use of land resource evaluation studies to select soils suitable for crop-pastures systems, avoiding those with severe physical constraints; 2)use of appropriate land clearing systems in forested areas that prevent soil compaction and include burning to take advantage of the free fertilizer value of the ash; 3)selection and/or breeding of productive, persistent and compatible pasture grass and legume cultivars tolerant to high levels of Al saturation, low levels of available soil P, major disease and insect attacks, drough stress, and burning; 4)supply nitrogen to the system by inoculating legumes with effective, acid-tolerant Rhizobium strains; 5)use low cost, low reactivity rock phosphates which become readily available when the soil is kept acid and Al-tolerant plants are grown; 6)correct other nutritional deficiencies, particularly potassium, sulfur and micronutrients; 7)use low cost pasture establishment methods such as low density seedlings or interplanting with crops; 8)use low cost pasture reclamation techniques; 9)for extensive cow-calf operations place about 10 of the grazing area in improved pastures. Preliminary results show that this strategy is very promising
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| Format: | biblioteca |
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Raleich, N.C. (EUA), 1981
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| Subjects: | SUELOS, EROSION, NUTRIMENTOS, AGUA DEL SUELO, CULTIVO, LEGUMINOSAE, GRAMINEAE, AMERICA TROPICAL, |
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