NEW FORAGE SPECIES FOR INTEGRATION OF SHEEP IN RUBBER PLANTATIONS

The productivity and persistence of 91 accessions of grasses, legumes and broad-leaved weeds were evaluated under young rubber at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia Experimental Station at Sungai Buloh n ear Kuala Lumpur. The species were chosen from world collections for t heir reported shade tolerance. Two small plot experiments were conduct ed from 1989 to 1990 and regular harvests were used to assess yield an d persistence. The soil at the site was acidic (pH 47) and infertile, and light transmission declined from 65 to 20% in Expt 1 and from 90 t o 50% in Expt 2. Pattern and cluster analyses were used to allocate ac cessions to groups with similar yield responses. Grasses which demonst rated both high yield and persistence of yield were Brachiaria decumbe ns MARDI accession, B. humidicola cv. Tully and Panicum maximum cvs Ga tton, Riversdale and Vencedor. High yielding and persistent legumes we re Stylosanthes scabra cv. Seca and S. guianensis CIAT 184. Survival o f species monitored one year after completion of the experiment indica ted the good longer term persistence of grasses Stenotaphrum secundatu m, Panicum laxum, Paspalum notatum, Paspalum wettsteinii, Brachiaria h umidicola and Panicum maximum cv. Vencedor, and legumes Arachis repens and A. pintoi.