Track 1-02: Development and Impact of Sown Tropical Species
Description
Forage peanut (Arachis pintoi) is a forage legume of relatively recent use in beef and dairy cattle feeding. Although it is native exclusively to Brazil, the first cultivar, Amarillo, was released in Australia in 1987. Forage peanut has a great number of favourable attributes for establishing grass-legume mixtures, which guarantee the persistence and high yields of high quality forage in cultivated pastures. Therefore, studies with this species have intensified in many tropical regions of the world (Assis and Valentim 2009). In the state of Acre, western Brazilian Amazon, 137,000 ha are cultivated with forage peanut, cv. Belmonte, benefiting thousands of producers, with annual economic impact of USD $46 M (Embrapa 2012). Social and environmental impacts resulting from the use of this legume are also highly positive. However, despite the success achieved in mixed pastures with forage peanut, expansion of the area sown has been relatively slow because vegetative propagation using stolons is labour intensive and requires large quantities of limited vegetative material. In Brazil, Embrapa has co-ordinated the development of new forage peanut cultivars and their evaluation in different biomes.
The objective of this paper is to present a new cultivar of seed propagated forage peanut, developed for use in tropical regions, by Embrapa in partnership with Unipasto (Association for Promotion of Breeding Research in Tropical Forage).
Included in
BRS Mandobi: A New Forage Peanut Cultivar Propagated by Seeds for the Tropics
Forage peanut (Arachis pintoi) is a forage legume of relatively recent use in beef and dairy cattle feeding. Although it is native exclusively to Brazil, the first cultivar, Amarillo, was released in Australia in 1987. Forage peanut has a great number of favourable attributes for establishing grass-legume mixtures, which guarantee the persistence and high yields of high quality forage in cultivated pastures. Therefore, studies with this species have intensified in many tropical regions of the world (Assis and Valentim 2009). In the state of Acre, western Brazilian Amazon, 137,000 ha are cultivated with forage peanut, cv. Belmonte, benefiting thousands of producers, with annual economic impact of USD $46 M (Embrapa 2012). Social and environmental impacts resulting from the use of this legume are also highly positive. However, despite the success achieved in mixed pastures with forage peanut, expansion of the area sown has been relatively slow because vegetative propagation using stolons is labour intensive and requires large quantities of limited vegetative material. In Brazil, Embrapa has co-ordinated the development of new forage peanut cultivars and their evaluation in different biomes.
The objective of this paper is to present a new cultivar of seed propagated forage peanut, developed for use in tropical regions, by Embrapa in partnership with Unipasto (Association for Promotion of Breeding Research in Tropical Forage).
