Among the essential factors in bovine production in tropical ecosystems of Latin America and other regions in the world, is the diet that is based mainly on the use of various plants with foraging potential such as cutting grasses. The success of these plants in livestock ecosystems depends on fundamental management factors such as: grass species, harvest intervals and the ability to sustain with excellent quality forage species. In the tropical areas of America, livestock feed consists of different forage species that are the most economical food for ruminants, and in which there may be a great diversity of agro-productive problems due to poor management of them.
In this sense, Rodríguez (2013), pointed out that, the production and productivity per animal will depend on the management carried out to the pastures through the rational use of them, obtaining forages with an adequate nutritional status and yield, with the intention of seeking the highest consumption by the animals. In this same vein, it can be said that well-managed pastures are the perfect food for ruminants, to obtain benefits in livestock ecosystems by knowing the nutritional quality of the pastures and the appropriate frequency of cutting, since it plays an important role at the time of voluntary consumption and its digestibility, because a well-managed pasture will express adequate levels of fiber and protein.
On the other hand, it should be noted that in a large part of the livestock agroecosystems of the South of Lake Maracaibo Venezuela, cutting grasses are sown, and among the species that are currently sowing is the cuba OM-22 grass, a forage species that is used by producers due to the high amounts of biomass that they produce, although many times they do not know the amounts of protein and fiber that they have at the time of cutting.
Sometimes the low yield of these crops is caused as mentioned above by the lack of knowledge that some producers have with the management of these plants, since, for example, the cutting frequencies used in some production units are based on experiences of producers or research carried out in neighboring areas that present different soil-climatic conditions, therefore they do not know what is the optimal time to harvest the pasture in their agroecosystems to be supplied to livestock.
It should also be mentioned that this ignorance on the part of producers regarding the optimal time of harvest brings with it some drawbacks in the yield and nutritional quality of the same, since, many times they are not provided with the necessary rest days for the forage species to recover from defoliation, or on the contrary, the rest days can be exceeded bringing with it that the animal consumes a very mature material with an excess of fiber and low protein content.
The above considerations constitute the main argument for the development of several investigations, in which the cutting frequency is evaluated in which indicators such as height, yield and quality of the pasture are interrelated, in such a way that it is possible to explain the behavior of these species when an appropriate cutting interval is selected. The importance of establishing cutting frequencies in any cutting pasture, seeks to increase the supply of forage and improve the yield of dry matter and the quality of the pastures.
Dear readers, implementing trials in pasture crops evaluating the aforementioned variables, seeks to provide answers and alternatives to the problems present in livestock production systems, starting from an endogenous and sustainable development in search of using management techniques that allow balancing forage production.
Thank you for reading our academic agricultural disclosures, until the next installment.
| Bibliographic references |
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Clavero, T. (2003). Pennisetum purpureum cv. Mott Biology, Agronomy and utilization in animal feeding. Maracaibo, Venezuela: Publications of the Center for technology transfer in grass and forages of the University of Zulia.
Rodríguez, Á. (2013). Pasture management practices and milk productivity in the Maracaibo Lake basin. In F. GIRARZ, Tropical pasture and forage management (pp.105-115). Maracaibo: Astro Data S.A.
