Annual legumes with greater water use efficiency can overcome seasonal feed imbalances
Large areas of southern Australia experience severe moisture stress through the summer‐autumn period (Fitzpatrick and Nix 1970) limiting pasture production and hence animal productivity.Under such seasonal conditions farmers can i) allow livestock to lose weight over the summer period or ii) provide livestock with supplementary feed such as silage or hay to maintain productivity.The later option is preferred to maintain animal productivity.Currently the most widely used legume on acid soils in farming systems in southern Australia is T ri f olium subterraneum.Recently a number of new annual legume species have been developed for farming systems in this region (Nichols et al.2006) and although not yet widely sown, have considerable agronomic potential.The aim of this study was to assess the water use efficiency (WUE) in kg DM/mm growing season rainfall (GSR) of eight recently developed annual legumes compared to T.subterraneum when sown at high densities for fodder conservation.
fodder conservation summer moisture stress T ri f olium Ornithopus Biserrula
B.Hackney B.Dear G.Dyce C.Rodham G.Li
NSW Department of Primary Industries,Private Mail Bag,Pine Gully Rd,Wagga Wagga,NSW 2650,Australia
国际会议
呼和浩特
英文
2008-06-29（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）