“…R hizoma peanut (RP) is a warm-season, vegetatively propagated, perennial legume with unique potential for incorporation into low-input forage-livestock systems in the U.S. Gulf Coast region (French et al, 1994;Castillo et al, 2013). Positive attributes of RP include drought tolerance (French, 1988), dry matter yields up to 10 to 12 Mg ha -1 yr -1 under natural rainfall conditions (Beltranena et al, 1981;Ocumpaugh, 1990), similar crude protein concentration and digestibility to alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) (Beltranena et al, 1981;Prine et al, 1981), and persistence under a wide range of management systems for hay, silage, and grazing and as an understory forage crop Ortega-S. et al, 1992;Johnson et al, 2002). Furthermore, due to its capacity to fix N 2 from the atmosphere and higher nutritive value compared to tropical grasses (Muir et al, 2011), RP may also be an alternative source of N for grasslands, improving the likelihood of long-term persistence while maintaining and/ or improving productivity of low-input forage-livestock systems Thomas, 1994).…”