White Prairie Clover (Dalea candida Michx. ex Willd.) and Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpurea Vent.) in Binary Mixtures with Grass Species

Samuel Peprah,Alan Iwaasa,Herbert Lardner,Murillo Ceola Stefano Pereira,Daalkhaijav Damiran,Enkhjargal Darambazar,Bill Biligetu,Kathy Larson

doi:10.5539/sar.v11n2p30

Abstract

Native forage legumes may have potential for summer/fall grazing in semiarid prairie regions in mixture with grasses. The objective of this study was to evaluate two native clovers in binary mixtures with the introduced grasses when harvested in July and September to simulate late summer or fall stockpile forage. Eight binary clover&ndash;grass mixtures were seeded in a split-plot design with 4 replications at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada. Mixtures included (i) AC Antelope white prairie clover (WPC)-Admiral meadow bromegrass (MBG), (ii) WPC-AC Success hybrid bromegrass (HBG), (iii) WPC-Bozoisky Russian wildrye (RWR), (iv) WPC-TomRWR, (v) AC Lamour purple prairie clover (PPC)-AdmiralMBG, (vi) PPC-AC SuccessHBG, (vii) PPC-BozoiskyRWR, and (viii) PPC-TomRWR. Clover establishment differed (p = 0.03) in July where WPC had 77.8% greater proportion in mixture than PPC, although both clovers increased (p &lt; 0.001) in September to similar legume proportions, 663.2 and 876.1 kg/ha, respectively. Clovers with bromegrasses produced 41.9% more forage dry matter yield in summer than clovers with Russian wildryes (p &lt; 0.001), though the latter mixtures had slightly better nutritive value (avg. 7.0% vs. 5.2% crude protein (CP). Clover&ndash;MBG exhibited higher (53.6%) in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) than Clover&ndash;HBG (51.2%) (p = 0.04). Purple prairie clover with grass or both clovers in mixture with bromegrasses, produced adequate forage biomass for summer and fall grazing, except clovers with Bozoisky RWR, while clovers with both RWR cultivars had acceptable forage nutritive value for summer in this semiarid prairie region.

Highlights

In the semiarid prairie region of the Northern Great Plains of North America, grazing ruminant livestock productivity and sustainability depends on forage dry matter yield (DMY) and nutritive value in late summer and early fall months prior to freezing temperatures that terminate forage growth
Lower legume as mentioned above, but higher grass proportion (2235.7 vs. 1499.6 kg/ha, ±173.35, p < 0.001) of PPC–Grass mixtures than those of WPC–Grass mixtures were detected at July harvest, there were no differences at September harvest
Like WPC–Grass, PPC–Grass mixtures did not vary in nutritive value over the growing season remaining at relatively low crude protein (CP) averaged at 6.0 ±0.40% and high neutral detergent fiber (NDF) (57.8 ±0.64%) or had no changes in acid detergent lignin (ADL) (8.6 ±0.33%), in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) (52.4 ±0.43%), Total digestible nutrients (TDN) (56.3 ±0.74%), P, K, or Ca concentration over the harvest dates (Tables 3 and 4)

Summary

Introduction

In the semiarid prairie region of the Northern Great Plains of North America, grazing ruminant livestock productivity and sustainability depends on forage dry matter yield (DMY) and nutritive value in late summer and early fall months prior to freezing temperatures that terminate forage growth. In northeastern Oregon of the United States, red clover was one the primary forb components in the herbage mass with the highest CP content (16.8% CP) and had been readily utilized by cattle on a riparian pasture during a late-summer grazing season (Darambazar, DelCurto, & Damiran, 2013). In southeastern United States, autumn-planted ryegrass or clovers including crimson, arrowleaf (Trifolium vesiculosum Savi), ball (T. nigrescens Viv.), and red clovers provided minimal to nonexistent forage mass for grazing during the fall (Mullenix & Rouquette, 2018)

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Conclusion