Theme 14: Advances in Forage Legumes

Description

For the selection of tropical legumes which contain anti-nutritive components such as tannins, relative acceptability of genotypes to ruminants is of particular importance, since these plant components may influence selective grazing behaviour and subsequent animal productivity. Plant-animal interactions are not predictable from laboratory analyses. Involving grazing animals through the conduction of relative-acceptability (=cafeteria) trials at early stages of the germplasm selection process might therefore provide a convenient tool to adjust and confirm genotype selection based on laboratory quality analyses data. As part of a multilocational germplasm evaluation project, cafeteria-experiments were conducted at two contrasting environments in Colombia with a core collection of Desmodium ovalifolium, a tropical legume species containing tannins. The objective of these experiments was to assess the usefulness of such acceptability trials in the selection of D. ovalifolium genotypes. Relative acceptability indices for the 18 accessions confirm genotype selection based on a series of laboratory quality analyses during earlier stages of the project and indicate pronounced genotype-environment interactions. Moreover, animal activity profiles confirm the influence of plant-environment-animal interactions and thus the usefulness of cafeteriatrials for germplasm selection projects.

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The Use of Cafeteria Trials for the Selection of Desmodium ovalifolium Genotypes

For the selection of tropical legumes which contain anti-nutritive components such as tannins, relative acceptability of genotypes to ruminants is of particular importance, since these plant components may influence selective grazing behaviour and subsequent animal productivity. Plant-animal interactions are not predictable from laboratory analyses. Involving grazing animals through the conduction of relative-acceptability (=cafeteria) trials at early stages of the germplasm selection process might therefore provide a convenient tool to adjust and confirm genotype selection based on laboratory quality analyses data. As part of a multilocational germplasm evaluation project, cafeteria-experiments were conducted at two contrasting environments in Colombia with a core collection of Desmodium ovalifolium, a tropical legume species containing tannins. The objective of these experiments was to assess the usefulness of such acceptability trials in the selection of D. ovalifolium genotypes. Relative acceptability indices for the 18 accessions confirm genotype selection based on a series of laboratory quality analyses during earlier stages of the project and indicate pronounced genotype-environment interactions. Moreover, animal activity profiles confirm the influence of plant-environment-animal interactions and thus the usefulness of cafeteriatrials for germplasm selection projects.