Producción de forraje y componentes del rendimiento del pasto Brachiaria humidicola CIAT 6133 con diferente manejo de la defoliación

Abstract

In order to evaluate the effect of cutting height (9, 12, and 15 cm) and frequency (3, 4, and 5 wk -rainy season- and 5, 6 and 7 wk -dry and windy seasons) a randomized block design with a 3x3 factorial arrangement and three replicates was used to study Brachiaria humidicola attributes: herbage accumulation, growth rate (GR), leaf mass (LM), tiller weight (TW) and tiller density (TD). No interaction effect was observed between cutting height and frequency for studied variables (P>0.05). Herbage mass distribution was 79, 13, and 8% for the Rainy, Windy and Dry seasons, respectively, with an average annual herbage yield of 11,154 kg DM ha-1. The highest GR (100 kg DM ha-1 d-1) was observed in August, and the lowest (5 kg DM ha-1 d-1) on May. Seasonal LM was 85, 99 and 100 % for the Rainy, Windy and Dry seasons, respectively, in the Rainy Season the highest (P<0.05) leaf percentage (90 %) was observed in the three weeks cutting frequency at 9 and 12 cm cutting height, and no differences were detected between treatments in the Windy and Dry seasons. The highest TW was recorded on September (747 mg tiller-1) and the lowest (80 mg tiller-1) on May. The greatest TD was observed on March and April in the 5 and 6 wk cutting frequencies at 15 cm cutting height (6088 to 6400 tillers m-2). It can be concluded that the highest herbage yield, GR, and TW were observed in the Rainy Season at 5 wk cutting frequency and 15 cm cutting height.