IN THE FIELD
Poor Man’ s Lucerne, Sericea lespedeza
Low-cost legume pasture
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Sericea lespedeza, also known as“ poor man ' s lucerne,” is fast gaining popularity among smallholders who require low-cost legume pastures. Unlike lucerne, Sericea does not require costly soil mineral corrections ~ this is how it earned the“ poor man” label. Sericea lespedeza is a shrubby, deciduous perennial plant about 0,5-1,5m tall. It is a drought tolerant, nonbloating legume, and a prolific seed producer. Individual stems may produce in excess of 1 000 seeds, with 340 – 960 kg of seed produced per hectare. However, germination rates are low, ranging from 10 – 20 %. Sericea lespedeza offers numerous advantages as a forage crop. It is droughttolerant, non-bloating, resistant to diseases and rarely attacked by insects. Mature plants are quite competitive with grasses. It is much more tolerant of soil acidity than most other legumes and is also very
tolerant of low fertility. Forage yields of sericea are good, and forage quality is better than most warm season perennial grasses. It is a surprisingly economical forage crop to grow due to thefactthatitdoesnot require any nitrogen fertilizer.
It has also been well documented that sericea is an excellent soil builder. It has been shown to increase the nitrogen content of associated grass. S lespedeza will grow in almost any soil, doing well in sandy and loamy soils. Sericea is deep-rooted but also does well on shallow soils with drainage restrictions. Tannin is the compound that confers the non-bloating characteristic to lespedeza, but it also decreases palatability and digestibility. Grazing forages high in tannins or adding purified Condensed Tannin( CT) to the diet has been shown to reduce numbers of parasite eggs in sheep and goat faeces. Feeding hay of
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