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Patrones estacionales de crecimiento de dos variedadesde alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.)

2004; National Institute of Research for Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.22319/rmcp.v42i2.1421

2448-6698

Yuri Villegas Aparicio, Alfonso Hernández Garay, Jorge Eduardo Pérez Pérez, Cándido López Castañeda, José Guadalupe Herrera Haro, Javier Francisco Enríquez Quiroz, Armando Gómez Vázquez,

Agroforestry and silvopastoral systems

The aim of this research was to determine the optimum harvesting time of alfalfa during the different seasons of the year. The experiment was carried out from April 2000 to March 2001, at the Instituto Tecnologico Agropecuario research unit, in Nazareno, Xoxocotlan, Oaxaca. The varieties used were: Valenciana and Oaxaca. Thirty-two plots (2 x 2 m) per variety were allocated in a completely randomized design with eight treatments and four replicates, treatments consisted of successive cuts at weekly intervals during a regrowth cycle (eight weeks) in each season of the year. All plots were cut to 5 cm and four samples of 0.25 m2 were taken, per variety, to ground level to determine residual herbage mass, from then onwards, four different plots were harvested to ground level at weekly intervals. Cumulative herbage mass, growth rate (GR), leaf:stem ratio, leaf number per tiller and leaf area index (LAI) were evaluated. The results showed that cumulative herbage harvested had the following seasonal pattern: spring > winter > summer > autumn. It was observed that cumulative herbage mass was correlated with GR and LAI, but not with leaves number per tiller. The results suggests that, in order to obtain the maximum herbage production, alfalfa must be harvested at 4, 4, 5 and 8-weeks intervals for Valenciana and 6, 4, 5 and 6-weeks intervals for Oaxaca during spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively.