Diversity of legumes and their productive potential on Brown soils with Carbonates of the central zone of Sancti Spiritus

Orquidia de la Concepción Álvarez Figueroa
EEPF Sancti Spiritus

ABSTRACT
The study of biological diversity at present constitutes one of the central objectives of the Plant Genetic Resource programs. Taking this principle as starting point this thesis work was developed, which constitutes a modest contribution to the knowledge of the diversity of forage legumes present on Brown soils with Carbonates of the central zone of Sancti Spiritus and their productive potential in livestock production areas. It begins with a prospection work, with the use of trips tracing imaginary diagonal transepts that allowed to locate, evaluate in situ, characterize and collect the forage legumes that grew spontaneously in such areas. From the collected germplasm, the most abundant and vigorous accessions of five of the collected genera useful for livestock feeding were selected and agronomically evaluated on the same soil type. It could be determined that in the sampled livestock production areas a total of 29 legume species belonging to 18 genera, which group 235 accessions, proliferate spontaneously, among which C. pubescens was the most abundant and vigorous species. In addition, it was proven that forage legumes can inhabit soils with variable conditions of surface drainage and the genera Sesbania, Desmodium and Cassia showed a trend of adaptation to bad drainages. Once the germplasm selected in the collection was agronomically studied for 2 years, it was determined that there are accessions which show good perspectives to be used as alternative for animal feeding, such as: Centrosema pubescens (SC102, SC107), Calopogonium mucunoides (SC-67), Clitoria ternatea (SC-134, 135, 136), Teramnus labialis (SC-48) and Vigna luteola (SC-123), due to their seed production potential, dry matter and protein percentage. For such reasons, to continue the recovery and study of native or naturalized forage legumes in the other ecosystems of the territory, is recommended.