Regional experience with Brachiaria : Asia, the South Pacific, and Australia | [Experiencia regional con Brachiaria : Asia, el sur del pacifico y Australia]
1996
Sturn, W.W. | Hopkinson, J.M. | Chen, C.P.
The savanna ecosystem is varied and extensive, covering about 250 million hectares in South America. It is characterized by a well-defined dry season and acid, low-fertility soils. A few Brachiaria species have shown wide adaptation and are extensively used as pasture grasses in this ecosystem. These were introduced from Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, and spread, at first, vegetatively and then by seed, covering today an estimated 70 million hectares. Despite constraints-susceptibility to spittlebugs-and nutritional limitations, the few available cultivars, derived from these early introductions, play a major role in livestock production systems in the savannas. New germplasm has become available since the late 1980s, when collecting trips were undertaken in East Africa, and intensive evaluation program were developed throughout the region. Selected accessions are entering advanced stages of evaluation. The results summarized in this paper attest to the outstanding characteristics of some of the new accessions, particularly of R brizantha, and emphasize the importance of collaborative multidisciplinary work between research institutions and countries.
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