Management and Productivity of Key Integrated Crop–Livestock Systems in Uruguay: The Palo a Pique Long-Term Experiment’s Third Phase

Abstract

Integrated Crop Livestock Systems (ICLSs) use productive diversification as a strategy to improve productivity and land use efficiency. Pasture Crop Rotations are a part of ICLSs and imply a pasture phase included in the sequence of crops. The main reasons to include pastures in crop systems are low productivity of natural grasslands and increased crop yield after a pasture phase. Our objective was to analyze the productivity indicators and management of four ICLSs that combine crop and livestock production, with data collected over a 3 y period (2019–2022). The experimental site was The Palo a Pique (Treinta y Tres, Uruguay) long-term experiment installed in 1995, located in the subtropical climate zone and on Oxyaquic Argiudolls soils (3% average slope). Systems evaluated were CC (continuous cropping), SR (two years idem CC, two years of pastures), LR (two years idem CC, four years of pastures) and FR (continuous pasture with Tall Fescue). Liveweight (LW) production, grain production and dry matter (DM) production were evaluated. Liveweight production was higher in CC and SR (426 and 418 kg LW/ha) than in LR (369 kg LW/ha) and FR (310 kg LW/ha). DM production was higher in FR and SR (6867 and 5763 kg DM/ha/year) than in LR (5399 kg DM/ha/year) and CC (5206 kg DM/ha/year). Grain production was 10%, 16% and 9% lower in soybean, wheat and sorghum in CC.