Abstract 66

Compere,-R; Buldgen,-A; Lemal,-D

Unite de Zootechnie, Faculte des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux, 5800 Gembloux, Belgium.

Bulletin-des-Recherches-Agronomiques-de-Gembloux. 1990, 25: 3, 357-372; 4 ref.

Drought in Senegal has reduced the wet season by 11 d and 246 mm/year and the fallow component of the traditional groundnuts/millet/groundnuts/fallow rotation is now of short duration and produces only 2.2 t DM/ha, the main components being Borreria chaetocephala, Digitaria velutina, Cenchrus biflorus, Dactyloctenium aegyptium, Alysicarpus ovalifolius and Chloris prieurii. The quantity and quality of the forage was evaluated using sheep; digestibility of the diet was 70% in the wet season and 53.2% in the dry season. Intake data indicated that the sheep would gain 78-100 g/d in the wet season but would not maintain weight in the dry season. Experiments with cattle indicated that an appropriate stocking rate would be 0.75 tropical cattle units/ha on 13.3% of the area, grazed in rotation during the 52 d of the wet season, and that the remaining area would supply sufficient straw to maintain the cattle during the dry season.