Abstracto
- In a property located in Caucasia, (Antioquia), it was evaluated the development of Cratylia argentea in three harvest frequencies (45, 60 and 90 days) and heights of cutting (30, 60 and 90cm) during 270 days (August 2003- June 2004). The design was a split plot, in which the main plots were the heights of cutting and the subplots were the harvest frequencies. In each treatment the variables evaluated were total dry matter and accumulated total dry matter (TDM and ATDM), forage dry matter and accumulated forage dry matter (FDM and AFDM), leaf/stem relation ( FDM/ SDM), crude protein (CP) and degradability of dry matter in situ (DDM). The averages of TDM and ATDM were not affected by the heights of cuttng, whereas the harvest frequency had a highly significant effect. The production of TDM was 70; 120 and 214 g/plant for the frequencies 45, 60 and 90 days respectively, and 99; 144 and 115 g/plant for heights of 30, 60 and 90cm, respectively. ATDM averages were similar for both sets of treatments: 427, 625 and 498 g/plant for the respective heights and 420, 488 and 642 g/plant for the harvest frequencies. The harvest frequency had a significant effect on FDM production. The averages were 54, 82 and 102 g/plant for the frequencies 45, 60 and 90 days. The percentage of FDM in the TDM presented similar averages for the heights of cutting of 30, 60 and 90cm.The percentage of FDM decreased with the increase of harvest frequency, with averages of 85,8, 73,2 and 45,7%, respectively for the frequencies 45, 60 and 90 days. The average content of CP (% in DM) were 19,5, 19 and 20 respectively for 30, 60 and 90cm of height. The values of CP were similar for each harvest frequency.The DDM did not present any differences between different heights of cutting, but was different between 45 and 90 days harvest frequencies. The averages were 68,6 and 58,9%. Cratylia argentea has potential for production of forage because of its accumulated dry matter yield and forage quality.
