Produção forrageira em sistemas integrados no semiárido

Abstract

The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the agronomic characteristics of forage sorghum established through crop-livestock integration with pigeon pea and Massai grass or Paiaguás grass, as well as to assess the productive performance of intercropped and sole-cropped cultures under semi-arid climate conditions in two study cycles. The cultivars used in the experiment were forage sorghum BRS658, pigeon pea Mandarim, Massai grass BRS, and Paiaguás grass BRS. The experimental design used was randomized blocks, in a 2x2x2 factorial scheme, with two cultivation methods, sole cropping, and intercropping, with the combinations of sorghum, pigeon pea, and Massai grass or Paiaguás grass, and four replications. The experimental period was from November 2020 to May 2021. The evaluations were carried out in two production cycles, the first at 120 days post-planting and the second at 70 days after the harvest of the first cycle. Plant height, natural matter productivity, dry matter productivity, dry matter content, botanical composition, and leaf-to stem ratio were assessed. There was a reduction in the dry matter productivity of sorghum when intercropped with Massai grass and/or pigeon pea in the first cycle. The total natural biomass productivity and total dry biomass productivity of the evaluated forage species were affected by the intercropping systems. The botanical composition of individual species was lower in the intercropped system compared to sole cropping; however, the intercropped system promoted an increase in forage diversity in treatments with integrated species. Massai grass showed the highest leaf-to-stem ratio (F:C), while sorghum exhibited the lowest F:C ratio among the evaluated species.