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Leucaena
as a winter feed
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| There is no doubt that the introduction of Leucaena has improved grazing potential of tropic and semi tropic rangeland. The plant/tree has the ability to produce vast quantities of feed if the soil and moisture conditions are favourable. There is ample evidence that if leucaena is established economically and successfully, it is one of the most profitable avenues open to a cattleman to improve his financial position.
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However there appears to be an area of
leucaena establishment that is being overlooked, and that is the ability of the deep rooted plant to continue providing high protein feed into the winter months long after the regular pasture growth has lost that ability. By using forestry techniques to provide a large soil fracture volume (zone), the plant can continue extracting moisture from clay soils further into the winter. This is the period when the leucaena feed is most valuable. If clay soils are ripped with special parabolic winged rippers, a large volume of soil is fractured economically. This fractured zone soaks up excess moisture during the wet season (or a rainfall event!) allowing the plant to continue growth further into the
winter or dry season.
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Savannah
206 in the raised position showing the Parabolic
Ripper.
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The availability of high protein feed in the winter months is absolutely necessary for continued animal growth. Huge amounts of protein supplement are used in the industry every year as graziers become more reliant on this means of supplying the animal’s protein requirement. The extra month or two of high protein growth achieved by “forestry type site preparation” can reduce the reliance on protein supplementation. The cost of achieving the extra winter growth by performing subsoil site preparation will be minimal in comparison to the increasing costs of protein supplements.
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Leucaena is a tree. Why not prepare the ground as you would for a bluegum or radiata pine.
In industrial forestry, an industry that analyses to the death every process that requires funding, the money and effort is targeted very specifically at where the tree is going to be planted. The area between the rows is not important. Only cultivate the initial root zone of the plant. Our suggestion is to rip and mound in the one operation, similar to the techniques use in the current bluegum establishment programs in Southern Australia and central Queensland (around Miriam Vale). It has been shown conclusively that without subsoiling and mounding, the growth results are uneconomic.
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10 TD25G
Tractors Fitted with Savannah Subsoiling Ploughs
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One of the aspects of mounding with the Savannah plow is that the outside disc cuts a deep furrow, isolating grass incursion from outside the cultivated row. The design of the mounding plow allows for high speed deep cultivation over any underground obstructions, without damage to the plow. The Savannah plow does all the hard work so that a follow up cultivation can be done with a light three point linkage offset. For a fine finish on the mound, we have a bed shaper that will leave the top surface smooth and level for accurate placement of the Leucaena seed.
The major cost is the horsepower requirement for the subsoiling process However this is money well spent if the result is high protein feed further into the dry winter and a subsequent reduction in expenditure on supplement.
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FREECALL
1-800-236632
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