Poster

Introduction of Improve Forages Under Coconut Trees for Goat

D. Polakitan, P. Paat, J. Wenas,O. Tandi, Z. Mantau
Installation of Agricultural Technology Assessment and Research, Kalasey North Sulawesi

INTRODUCTION                 

The province of North Sulawesi, Indonesia has a budding goat production manifested by the increased in the number of farmers in goats. Goat production could be further improved if desirable and sustainable forage supply is obtained by the animals since the success of animal production is dependent on the feed resource available in an area. Unfortunately, forages has always been one of the limited factors in livestock production, thus, livestock and plantation farmers need to optimized the use of available land under coconut trees for forage plantation.

Crop Livestock System (coconut-forages-goat) is an answer to the scarce supply of   good forages (grass and legume) to support the feed requirements of goats.  In addition the system produces manure with the feed converted to organic fertilizer. Thus, this supports the optimal growth of pasture and coconut productivity.

METHODOLOGY

The research was conducted in Pandu Village, Wori District, Minahasa Regency from April to December 2000. The introduced technology is King Grass  planted at 0.5 m x 1 m plant distance with 2 to 3 poles. “Lamtoro”  leucaena and Gamal (Gliricidia) both planted at 2 x 2 m long distance with 50 cm stem cuttings. Eight male goats were fed with King Grass and legumes were used to measure about their growth response. Eight female goats were used to study the pasture carrying capacity.

The pasture was fertilized with 100-kg urea/ha, 100 kg TSP/ha and 50 SP-36 kg/ha. The performance of King Grass was determined using the Complete Randomized Design (CRD). The treatments are defoliation intervals (30, 40, 50, 60 days) following the first defoliation at 60 days after planting. Each treatment plot measured 9 x 9 m2.