Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: grass (misc. annual), peanuts
Practices
- Crop Production: warm-season legumes
Proposal abstract:
Forage legumes are a viable option to alleviate N fertilizer inputs in grasslands. Numerous cool-season legumes are available in the market and have been used by livestock producers in USA. Perennial warm-season legume options, however, are reduced. Rhizome peanut is one of the few successful stories in terms of persistence under grazing. Slow establishment and cost of planting reduce adoption of this legume among producers. Seeded peanut (Arachis pintoi and A. hypogea) if properly managed might be a potential alternative of forage legumes to use in warm-season grass sod, such as bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum) and Tifton-85 (Cynodon spp.). This research project aims to evaluate the potential use of different peanuts established on bahiagrass and Tifton-85 sods. Two experiments will be carried out, one for each warm-season grass. Treatments will consist of legume species/cultivar establishment onto grass sod, as follows: 1) Arachis glabrata cv. Florigraze; 2) Arachis glabrata cv. Ecoturf; 3) Arachis pintoi cv. Amarillo; 4) Arachis hypogea cv. Tufrunner 727; 5) bahiagrass only without N fertilizer. Each experiment will be carried under a complete randomized block design, with four replications per treatment. Response variables measured in both experiments include dry matter yield, botanical composition, soil coverage, peanut stand, peanut height, annual peanut reseeding potential (seed yield, percentage of hard seeds, germination of hard seeds after heat treatment, and clover seedling density in the following cool-season), total N, 15N, and IVOMD. Expected results include recommendation of rhizome peanut and seeded peanut cultivars for use in Bahiagrass and Tifton-85 pastures.
Project objectives from proposal:
The general objective of this proposal is to evaluate the potential use of different peanuts (A. glabrata, A. hypogea, A. pintoi) associated to two warm-season grasses (Pensacola bahiagrass and Tifton-85). Specific objectives include the determination of forage yield, botanical composition, stand, nutritive value, N biological fixation by the legumes and transfer to associated grass, reseeding potential of seeded peanuts. The establishment of peanut into existing forage production systems in Florida should 1)decrease the need for N fertilization, 2)increase economic and biological efficiency, 3) increase biodiversity, and 4) increase overall economic and ecological sustainability of these systems.