Yucca variety ideal for feeding cattle in times of drought

The project was carried out with varieties produced and released by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT, for its Spanish acronym) named Mper 183, CM2766"5, BRA 300, and Mcol1505. The project was carried out by Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNal) Agronomic Engineer Leidy Carolina Martínez Dávalos.

The experimental trial to assess green foliage production potential of the aforementioned cultivars determined that the one with the greatest sprouting percentage was Mper 183, with 97.52%. Cultivars CM2766"5, BRA 300 and Mcol1505 had 88.32, 89.40 and 95.52% respectively. 

Green foliage is comprised of foliar leaves, petioles (stalk that attaches the leaf blade to the stem) and stalks. It is used as cattle feed during times of intense heat and lack of rain, when grass (the primary food source for cattle) becomes scarce.

"Depending of the variety, yucca foliage has close to 20% raw protein which is comparable to other plant protein sources such as tropical vegetables, including leucaena, for instance,"  said Luis Miguel Ramírez Nader, director of Martínez"s thesis project.

Precisely in regards to green foliage in tons per hectare (t/h), they discovered that the one with greater yield was Mper 183, with 44.15 t/h.

The t/h average per year was: 142 t/h for Mper 183, 118 for CM2766"5, 97 for BRA"300 and 107 for Mcol1505.

"These indicators show that Mper 183 showed the greatest green foliage yield. It also has good nutritional content and desirable physiological features due to its adaptability to critical agroecological areas (dry areas with low amounts of rain and when it does rain it is not evenly distributed among the months of the year) to produce foliage," said Martínez.

According to Martínez although the results do not offer a large scale solution for the nutritional issue in times of drought, it could be an effective solution for small cattle farmers which use artisanal foliage drying methods.

Drought which can occur twice a year makes cattle nutrition poor due to lack of grass, thus making cattle farmers search for nutritional supplements including yucca foliage.

Yucca is a tropical crop which adapts well to diverse soil and climate conditions and may be found in inter-Andean valley mountain slopes, the Atlantic coast and the western plains of Colombia, etc.

Methodology

To develop this research project they planted four cultivars (Mper 183, CM2766"5, BRA 300 and Mcol1505) in 16 experimental land plots in tropical dry forest conditions in a farm located near the municipality of El Cerrito (Province of Valle del Cauca).

To assess green forage production and its nutritional composition they performed two cross-sections; the first at 120 days after seeding and in central stalks at approximately 40 cm (15.7 in) high; the second was performed after 221 days. During the process the yucca crop underwent conventional crop management and fertilizers were applied at day 45 of planting with 28 g of diammonium phosphate per plant.