Abstract
The demand for high-quality forages is increasing in tropical regions, and could be filled with legume species of the genus Grona, which have good nutritive value. In this study, a comparison of the forage production and nutritive value of 10 accessions of Grona spp. was carried out in the field at Danzhou, Hainan from 2016 to 2018. Yield, plant height, survival rate, leaf:stem ratio and concentrations of crude protein, crude fiber, crude fat (ether extract), nitrogen free extract, crude ash, calcium and phosphorus were measured. Results showed that Grona strigillosa (syn. Desmodium strigillosum) cv. Reyan No. 27 and G. heterocarpa subsp. ovalifolia (syn. Desmodium ovalifolium) cv. Maquenque displayed the best performance, owing to their 261.3% and 235.6% higher dry matter yields, respectively, compared with the Control germplasm, G. heterocarpa subsp. ovalifolia cv. Reyan No. 16 in 2018. Cultivar Maquenque had a higher survival rate than the Control (P<0.05). Regarding nutritive value, cv. Reyan No. 27 exhibited higher crude fat and crude fiber but lower Ca concentrations than the Control (P<0.05). Based on PCA ranking, we concluded that cvv. Maquenque and Reyan No. 27 could be used as suitable candidate materials for livestock production in tropical regions of China. Further studies on their tannin concentrations and their acceptability by animals are needed before practical recommendations can be made.
Highlights
The demand for high-quality animal products in developing countries is increasing year by year with the improvement of living standards and consumption changes (Lee 2018)
The demand for high-quality forages is increasing in tropical regions, and could be filled with legume species of the genus Grona, which have good nutritive value
Grona comprises currently 21 species and subspecies recognized by GRIN, the taxonomic database of the USDA Genetic Resources Information Network, among them some species well known by the tropical forages plant research community, such as G. barbata, G. heterocarpa subsp. ovalifolia, G. heterophylla, G. strigillosa and G. triflora
Summary
The demand for high-quality animal products in developing countries is increasing year by year with the improvement of living standards and consumption changes (Lee 2018). The development of livestock production is usually limited by insufficient high quality forage supply. It is crucial to invest in developing and utilizing new forage resources with high production and nutritive value in tropical regions (Kambashi et al 2014). Tropical forage legumes have the potential to contribute significantly to sustainable intensification of livestock production (Schultze-Kraft et al 2018). Based on our prior evaluation of nutritional concentrations (Chen et al 2010; Liu et al 2014), an important and well known legume genus is Desmodium, from which the genus Grona was recently separated, based on morphological, palynological and molecular data (Ohashi and Ohashi 2018). Grona comprises currently 21 species and subspecies recognized by GRIN, the taxonomic database of the USDA Genetic Resources Information Network (npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/ taxon/taxonomysearch), among them some species well known by the tropical forages plant research community, such as G. barbata, G. heterocarpa subsp. Grona comprises currently 21 species and subspecies recognized by GRIN, the taxonomic database of the USDA Genetic Resources Information Network (npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/ taxon/taxonomysearch), among them some species well known by the tropical forages plant research community, such as G. barbata, G. heterocarpa subsp. ovalifolia, G. heterophylla, G. strigillosa and G. triflora
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