Abstract
To feed dairy cattle in West African farms, livestock keepers usually combine the availability of natural resources, crops residues and other more or less locally available alternative feed resources. However, despite such strategies the herds nutritional requirements are rarely covered. Among the consequences of such often and unpredictable feeding unbalances are the low production level and calvings seasonality. Thus, this study was intended to design, in partnership with livestock keepers, an innovative forage system that has never been tested under the West African context. The proposed low-input intensive forage production technology, rely on establishing high-density Woody forage banks (WFB). The potentialities of WFB for sustainable forage production, as well as the establishment feasibility under real farm conditions and the effects on the dairy cows production performance was also evaluated. During 18 consecutive months, we monitored the agronomic performance of two widely recognized woody fodder species (one leguminous: leucaena, Leucaena leucocephala; and one non-leguminous: mulberry, Morus alba), planted at high-density (20000 plants/ha) for the first time in 3 different sites of western Burkina Faso for intensive forage production. Three WFB have been established in 2016 using the «step-by-step» co-design method (Vall et al., 2016). At the first standardization cut, 13 months after planting date (PD), the heights of leucaena and mulberry plants were respectively 183.4±20.4 cm and 153±5.3 cm and lower than reported results ranging from 200 to 300 cm (Wencomo et al., 2009; Martín et al., 2014). These performances were affected by soil quality, termite attacks, drought and agronomic practices such as mulching, shallower planting bed. The high forage yield per ha as well as the nutritional values , respectively) confirmed the potential interest of this forage technology for contribution to the farm forage authonomy in this region while im
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