Agrometeorological research on forage cactus and its advances in Brazil

Abstract

Despite being more resilient than agriculture, the performance of the livestock sector depends greatly on the seasonality of the weather variables, which directly affect the supply and quality of the forage. Many forage species have an accumulation of biomass limited to the rainy season, which restricts the activity. Agrometeorology is the science that studies the effect of meteorological and climatological conditions on the agricultural performance of the species and field activities. The progress of this science to a crop allows the understanding of its interaction with the environment and the measurement of technical data, valuable for the improvement of agricultural resilience, planning, decision making, and expansion of financing and rural insurance policies. As a result, it is important to understand the plant-environment interaction to identify the factors that most influence the performance of crops, to elaborate the climatic risk zoning. Knowledge of phenology improves agricultural management and determines the cutting time. The definition of the crop coefficient helps in water management. The application practices of improving agricultural resilience such as selecting the most suitable cultivars, mulching, intercropping and minimum irrigation use ensure maximization of yield. This knowledge was recently raised for the forage cactus, the most cultivated forage cactus in the world. Hence, the objective of this study was to review the advances of agrometeorology information in Brazil on forage cactus for optimization of irrigation management and maximization productivity of the crop.

Productivity, bromatological composition and economic benefits of using irrigation in the forage cactus under regulated deficit irrigation in a semiarid environment

“…In the present study, the productive performance of the forage cactus varied by clone only. The higher total number of cladodes for MIU was expected, as it is an intrinsic morphological characteristic of this clone (Silva et al 2017). Although it belongs to the same genus as MIU, IPA had the lowest TNC, showing no difference to the OEM clone.…”

“…According to Nobel (2001), regions with an annual rainfall between 400 and 800 mm and an average air temperature between 16 and 2 °C, favour rainfed cultivation for the cactus. Silva et al (2017) state that locations where the rainfall is greater than 493 mm •year -1 with at least 55 mm •month -1 over seven months require no irrigation.…”

Improving productivity and water use efficiency by intercropping cactus and millet

“…are suitable species for animal feed in semi‐arid environments since they are well accepted and easily digested by herds, in addition to being a source of energy, water, fibre and/or carbohydrates (Dias‐Martins et al, 2018; Moraes et al, 2019). Although adapted to extreme drought conditions, their performance depends on the water regime (Diniz et al, 2017; Rostamza et al, 2011; Silva et al, 2017). Therefore, in arid and semi‐arid environments, the intra‐annual and interannual variability of the rainfall regime, linked to successive drought events resulting from climate change, leads to more frequent use of irrigation in a more rational search for food production (Yang et al, 2016; Yavuz et al, 2015).…”

Efeito da Irrigação Suplementar na Produtividade e Eficiência no Uso de Água da Palma Forrageira

“…Apesar desta boa adaptabilidade no semiárido do nordeste, alguns estudos vêm mostrando que quando a precipitação pluvial local não atinge os níveis considerados ideais, faz-se necessário o uso de irrigação suplementar para atender as necessidades hídricas da palma forrageira, sendo uma ótima opção para incrementar o rendimento da cultura, onde promove melhorias em características relacionadas à sua produtividade, como crescimento da planta, número de cladódios e índice de área do cladódio (Queiroz et al, 2015;Amorim et al, 2017;Barbosa et al, 2017a;Cruz Neto et al, 2017;Silva et al, 2017a;Lima et al, 2018b;Fonseca et al, 2019).…”