Track 1-07: Prospects for Management to Increase Grassland and Forage Productivity
Description
Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schum.) is one of the most widely used forages in Brazil, due to its high potential productivity, forage quality, palatability, vigour and persistence. Dwarf types of elephant grass are the object of selection programs for their higher leaf/stem ratio and lower grazing height, resulting in more efficient pasture management. They have high potential for ruminant production (Almeida et al. 2000), but have markedly different morphological and productive characteristics (Cunha et al. 2011) to tall varieties of the same species.
Adaptability and stability analyses are selection tools which allow identification of plant responses to different environments (Cruz and Regazzi 2001) and can identify stable productive clones across a range of environments. This study evaluated the genotype x environment interaction for productive characteristics of P. purpureum clones grazed by sheep.
Included in
Adaptability and Stability of Productive Characteristics on the Selection of Pennisetum purpureum Schum. Clones Grazed by Sheep
Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schum.) is one of the most widely used forages in Brazil, due to its high potential productivity, forage quality, palatability, vigour and persistence. Dwarf types of elephant grass are the object of selection programs for their higher leaf/stem ratio and lower grazing height, resulting in more efficient pasture management. They have high potential for ruminant production (Almeida et al. 2000), but have markedly different morphological and productive characteristics (Cunha et al. 2011) to tall varieties of the same species.
Adaptability and stability analyses are selection tools which allow identification of plant responses to different environments (Cruz and Regazzi 2001) and can identify stable productive clones across a range of environments. This study evaluated the genotype x environment interaction for productive characteristics of P. purpureum clones grazed by sheep.
