Establishment and management of leucaena in Latin America

Abstract

Keynote paper presented at the International Leucaena Conference, 1‒3 November 2018, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.Leucaena leucocephala (leucaena) is native to Mexico and Central America and is currently naturalized in the majority of Latin American countries. Over the last 2 decades, considerable research and promotion of leucaena have been carried out in Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Research focused on the agronomic and management options for feeding beef, dairy or dual-purpose animals, with some studies on germplasm, weediness issues, toxicity, organic fertilizer application and environmental services.Over the past 10‒15 years, establishment and management of leucaena feeding systems in Latin America have varied according to country. For instance, intensive Silvopastoral Systems (iSPS) models are widely promoted and successfully adopted in Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela and Northeast Brazil. In ISS, leucaena is planted at high density (>10,000 trees/ha), in combination with improved tropical grass and high-value timber species (200‒400 trees/ha), and intensively managed employing rotational grazing.In Paraguay and Argentina, leucaena is planted in single or double hedgerows with inter-row alleys of 6‒8 m, following the configuration used in Australia and mainly focused on beef production. In Mexico, leucaena is also cultivated with Tithonia diversifolia or lemon trees. Meanwhile, in other countries such as Cuba, leucaena has been established as protein banks using single/twin rows with inter-row spacing of 2‒4 m for feeding beef, dairy or dual-purpose animals. Overall, paddock sizes for protein banks and ISS range between 0.3 and 50 ha, while single and twin hedgerow systems are generally established over larger areas (20‒500 ha). Despite the significant benefits demonstrated by research on leucaena feeding systems over the past 2 decades, coupled with successful outcomes for farmers who have adopted these systems, total area sown remains low across Latin America. This review provides a comparison between Latin American and Australian leucaena pasture systems, and recommendations for future collaborative research between countries.

Tropical Grasslands-Forrajes Tropicales Vol.7 No.4 [Sep 2019]

“…Animal productivity. Conference delegates confirmed that leucaena is a highly palatable, productive and profitable forage option used by beef producers in northern Australia (Buck et al 2019a; and by beef, dairy and goat producers in Colombia (Pachas et al 2019;Rivera et al 2019;Zapata Cadavid et al 2019;), Mexico (Ramírez-Avilés et al 2019), Paraguay (Glatzle et al 2019), Argentina (Radrizzani et al 2019a;, Indonesia (Dahlanuddin et al 2019;Waldron et al 2019), Myanmar (Aung 2019), India (Nimbkar 2019), Thailand (Nakamanee et al 2019a;, Venezuela (Escalante 2019) and Cuba (Ruiz et al 2019).…”

“…Leucaena and greenhouse gas implications. A subject area which provoked extensive discussion was the positive impact of leucaena plantings on reducing GHG emissions with papers by Tomkins et al (2019) from Australia, Chará et al (2019) from Colombia, Banegas et al (2019) from Argentina and Ramírez-Avilés et al (2019) from Mexico. Tomkins et al (2019) reported data that showed soil C in rangelands after 40 years was 17-30% higher under leucaena-grass pastures than under grass-only pastures.…”

“…Chará et al (2019) reported results on GHG emissions from soil and pastures in an intensive silvopastoral system (ISPS) with leucaena in Colombia that generated 30% less CO2, 98% less CH4 and 89% less N2O soil emissions per ha per month, when compared with an adjacent conventional farm with irrigation and high fertilizer inputs. Ramírez-Avilés et al (2019) reported experiments in which methane emissions were reduced by >50% as leucaena in diet was increased from 0 to 80%, and carbon storage was increased by 38% in leucaena-grass systems compared with pure grass pasture. King and Burgess (2019) reported that Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) payments might be possible in Australia based on reduced CH4 and N2O emissions (N2 fixation, dung and urine) and soil C storage.…”

“…There was general agreement at the conference that, despite overwhelming evidence for the high productivity, profitability and sustainability of leucaena feeding to ruminants around the world, adoption of the innovation was universally well below expectations. Presentations from Australia (Buck et al 2019b;Kenny andDrysdale 2019), Colombia (Zapata Cadavid et al 2019), Argentina (Radrizzani et al 2019a;, Mexico (Ramírez-Avilés et al 2019), Indonesia (Dahlanuddin et al 2019), Thailand (Nakamanee et al 2019a), Myanmar (Aung 2019) and India (Nimbkar 2019) all reported that more needs to be done to increase adoption of this highly successful innovation.…”