Chemical Composition of Herbage

Bickoff, E. M.; Kohler, G. O.; Smith, Dale

doi:10.2134/agronmonogr15.c12

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Besides forage quality, alfalfa shows adaptability to different environments, abundant biomass yield, drought tolerance and, more important, capacity to fix nitrogen through symbiosis with rhizobia (Lei et al, 2017;Putnam et al, 2001;Radovic et al, 2009;Singer et al, 2018). The latter accounts for most of the N2 requirements of alfalfa and ensures the high protein levels in leaves (Bickoff et al, 1972;Heichel, 1983). As a deep-rooted plant, alfalfa has an improved efficiency of water usage (Putnam et al, 2001) and nutrient uptake; together with N2 fixation, these are excellent qualities for sustainable agriculture (Kulkarni et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of alfalfa forage quality and management through the down‐regulation of MsFTa1

Lorenzo

García‐Gagliardi

Antonietti

et al. 2019

Plant Biotechnology Journal

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Summary Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is one of the most important forage crops worldwide. As a perennial, alfalfa is cut several times each year. Farmers face a dilemma: if cut earlier, forage nutritive value is much higher but regrowth is affected and the longevity of the stand is severely compromised. On the other hand, if alfalfa is cut later at full flower, stands persist longer and more biomass may be harvested, but the nutritive value diminishes. Alfalfa is a strict long‐day plant. We reasoned that by manipulating the response to photoperiod, we could delay flowering to improve forage quality and widen each harvesting window, facilitating management. With this aim, we functionally characterized the FLOWERING LOCUS T family of genes, represented by five members: MsFTa1, MsFTa2, MsFTb1, MsFTb2 and MsFTc. The expression of MsFTa1 correlated with photoperiodic flowering and its down‐regulation led to severe delayed flowering. Altogether, with late flowering, low expression of MsFTa1 led to changes in plant architecture resulting in increased leaf to stem biomass ratios and forage digestibility. By manipulating photoperiodic flowering, we were able to improve the quality of alfalfa forage and management, which may allow farmers to cut alfalfa of high nutritive value without compromising stand persistence.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of alfalfa forage quality and management through the down‐regulation of MsFTa1

Lorenzo

García‐Gagliardi

Antonietti

et al. 2019

Plant Biotechnology Journal

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Phosphorus regulation of nitrogen fixation in a traditional Mexican agroecosystem

Crews

1993

Biogeochemistry

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Abstract. Although nitrogen is considered to be the nutrient that most commonly limits production of natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems, I propose that phosphorus may regulate productivity in many continuously cultivated agroecosystems that do not receive applications of synthetic fertilizers. One way P may limit agroecosystem productivity is by controlling nitrogen fixation of legume crops, thus affecting nitrogen availability in the overall agroecosystem. I tested this hypothesis in two studies by examining the effect of phosphorus nutrition on nitrogen fixation of alfalfa in traditional Mexican agroecosystems. All farms used in the research relied on alfalfa as the primary nitrogen source for maize cultivation and other crops, and had minimal or no reliance on synthetic fertilizers.In one study, I used the natural abundance of 15N to estimate nitrogen fixation in five alfalfa plots with soils representing a wide range of P fertility. I found a correlation of r = 0.85 between foliage P concentrations and nitrogen fixation in the alfalfa plots. Mean nitrogen fixation in alfalfa plots ranged between 232-555 kg ha-' yr-' as estimated by the 15N-natural abundance method.In a second study, I sampled soils from alfalfa plots on traditional farms located in 5 different physiographic regions of Mexico. Half of each soil sample was augmented with phosphorus in a greenhouse experiment. I grew alfalfa on the fertilized and unfertilized soils from each site and then determined nitrogenase activity (acetylene reduction) of the Rhizobium on the plant roots. Nitrogenase activity increased in the alfalfa grown on all soils with added phosphorus, with two of the five differences being statistically significant at P < 0.01, and one at P < 0.05. Foliage P concentrations and nitrogenase activity were positively correlated (r = 0.8 1, P < 0.01).

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Proteolysis and rumen degradability of protein in alfalfa preserved as silage, wilted silage or hay

Hristov

Sandev

1998

Animal Feed Science and Technology

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Chemical Composition of Herbage

Cited by 3 publications

References 152 publications

Improvement of alfalfa forage quality and management through the down‐regulation of MsFTa1

Improvement of alfalfa forage quality and management through the down‐regulation of MsFTa1

Phosphorus regulation of nitrogen fixation in a traditional Mexican agroecosystem

Proteolysis and rumen degradability of protein in alfalfa preserved as silage, wilted silage or hay

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