Regional selection of pastures and use of alternatives for their low-cost establishment in the Cauto Valley

Inocencio Gómez Angulo

ABSTRACT
Several Cuban authors have acknowledged pastures and forages as the main source of feedstuffs for cattle production, as it is the cheaper and easier way through which the cost-effectiveness in production farms can be achieved without large investments. However, the existence of naturalized pastures of low nutritional value and little productivity limit the cattle production development in all its dimensions; for which the adoption of measures is necessary to allow, under a scientific conception of development, to generate the most urgent results and to establish more economical alternatives for their application, so that they allow to develop this sector of economy needed by the Cuban population. Based on the above-expressed criteria, this study was conducted in order to determine the pasture species adapted to the most representative ecosystem of the Cauto Valley and to achieve their introduction in an economical way under these conditions. For such purpose six experiments were conducted with species from the two plant families most widely used as pastures and forages worldwide: grasses and legumes. The study was carried out in three work stages: Stage I, initial discrimination of species; Stage II, evaluation and selection and Stage III, establishment of the selected accessions combining this process with the application of known agroecological practices. The trials were performed in the most representative ecosystem of the Cauto Valley, where a Vertisol soil prevails, with very specific physical characteristics and a hot climate with a moderate to low rainfall level, mean annual temperature of 26 ºC and maximum temperatures in the summer higher than 30 ºC which hinder the sowing and attention of agricultural crops. Forty grass and ten legume accessions were initially evaluated, from which ten and five, respectively, continued to the second stage; from them four and three were selected in that same order, allowing three accessions of each family to pass to the third stage, which were established combining their sowing with temporary species for grain production, utilizing the erect characteristics of Sorghum bicolor, Helianthus annuss and Zea mays as supports. The results achieved were concluded to be encouraging because positive financial balances are obtained with a very varied profit level among treatments, but very advantageous in polycrops, in which the cost x peso lower than one unit represents a step forward to amend the expenses incurred. In addition, their practical demonstration offers wide possibilities to re-start the substitution of little productive species in cattle production farms with the efficient utilization of the establishment processes of the pasturelands that are traditionally performed in livestock production.