Manejo de corte da palma forrageira: entendendo a dinâmica de crescimento e o efeito na eficiência de produção

Abstract

Cultural practices such as cutting management can assist in the growth dynamics of forage species. The understanding of these techniques helps in the production of food in order to reduce the impacts resulting from climate changes. This study investigated the effect of palm management to understand the source-drain relationship and its influence on the growth dynamics and accumulation of biomass by the crop. The experiment was conducted at the “International Reference Center for Agrometeorological Studies of Palma and other Forage Plants”, located at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Serra Talhada Academic Unit, municipality of Serra Talhada. The Mexican Elephant Ear (Opuntia stricta (Haw.) Haw.) And the Girl (Nopalea cochenillifera (L.) Salm-Dyck) clones were used. Planting was carried out in October 2018 with 1.25 x 0.2 m spacing, irrigation was carried out through the drip system with emitters spaced 0.20 m apart, flow of 1.51 L h-1 at a pressure of 1 atm. the water used had an electrical conductivity of 1.51 dS m-1. The irrigation depth was based on the percentage (120%) of the crop evapotranspiration (ETc), with ETc being the relationship between the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) and the crop coefficient (Kc). The design used was randomized blocks, in a 2x2 factorial scheme: Mexican Elephant Ear and Baby, with and without the adoption of cut management (FONDREN), totaling four treatments, with four repetitions. After six months, the arrangement changed to 2x2x2, including the cutting intensities, applied to the two right rows of each plot. The cutting management was renewed in the plots with FONDREN, in the plots without the FONDREN management, a thinning was used, maintaining 1st order cladodes. Initially, management was applied based on the number of 2nd order cladodes (Plants with up to 3 2nd order cladodes, 1 cladode was removed; plants with 4 and 5 2nd order cladodes, 2 cladodes were removed). In the second phase, the cut was based on the number of branches (Plants with up to 3 branches, one was removed; plants with 4 and 5 branches were removed two). Biometric measurements, biomass sampling were collected to calculate growth rates and dry matter accumulation. The results indicated that the FONDREN management provided a high cladode emission rate for the two clones, the OEM clone has characteristics that result in high yield values in relation to the other forage palm clones, the cut management (FONDREN) cooperated in the maximization of the final yields of the OEM, resulting in the best values (p <0.05) of accumulation of fresh and dry matter. The FONDREN with the intensities of cuts, provided a high accumulation of dry matter between the moments of cuts. The clone Orelha de Elefante Mexicana when submitted to FONDREN management, shortened the period of the second phenophase (F2) by approximately 2 months, which suggests an anticipation of the ideal harvest time, and provided the best yields of fresh and dry matter when compared to the Miúda clone.