Sustainable intensification using irrigation and N fertilization for pasture production in Tocantins, Brazil.

• Autor(a) principal: SANTOS, D.
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: GUARDA, V. D. A., SANTOS, V. R. V. dos, CAMPOS, L. J. M., ALCANTARA, P. H. R. de, SIMON, J., ALVES, R. R., PEDREIRA, B. C. e, QUEIROZ, FABIANA MATOS, CARDOSO, DIOGO DA SILVA, MONTEIRO, HIGOR CARVALHO
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da EMBRAPA (Repository Open Access to Scientific Information from EMBRAPA - Alice)
• Texto Completo: http://www.alice.cnptia.embrapa.br/alice/handle/doc/1086631
• topic: Tropical forages; Guinea grass; Sprinkler; Forage production; Panicum; Megathyrsus maximus; Sprinkler irrigation

Cattle raising is among the main Brazilian economic activities. Currently, there are 169 million hectares covered by tropical grasslands and 30% of this area is degraded. In the last 40 years, the area occupied by grasslands in Brazil increased only 17% while the meat production increased 114% and that fact was only possible due to national effort and investments on agricultural research, development and innovation. To verify the influence of irrigation in a pasture of Panicum maximum cv. Massai was carried out a field research testing rainfed and two irrigation depths (SO and 100% of evapotranspiration) and 300 kg ha-1 year-1 of N-urea, during one year at the periods Jun-Sep, Oct-Nov, Dec-Mar and Apr-May, in Tocantins state, Brazil. The parameters are one animal unit (AU) corresponding to 450 kg of liveweight, a daily dry matter intake of 11.25 kg. The accumulated dry matter (kg ha-1 day-1 ) obtained by the 100% depth was significantly higher than the others in almost all periods analyzed, and during Jun-Sep the treatment 50% depth showed no significant difference when compared to 100% depth suggesting seasonality probably related to low temperatures. The results revealed the potential to achieve a stocking rate of 6.44, 4.20 and 3.51 AU ha-1 year-1 with 100%, 50% depths and rainfed treatment, respectively. Despite promising results, further studies on physiology, phenology and economy must be done to confirm the feasibility of using irrigation for pasture production in Tocantins.