Recovery and seeds germination of four important tropical forage legumes in bovine dung

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the recovery and survival of tropical forage legume seeds (butterfly pea, stylosanthes, perennial soybean and macrotiloma) subjected through the digestive tract of cattle and to evaluate the germination of the seeds in feces of cattle. A 50 g of seed mixed with 150 g of mineral supplement offered to the cattle. Each cattle was considered as repetition. The bovine feces collected up to 60 hours after eating the seeds, where the seeds separated by sieves, using water, gloves procedure and tweezers. Later, they counted and divided into intact and swollen. For the germination test of the recovered seeds, 75 seeds per replicate were used (25 in natura, 25 intact and 25 swollen seeds, respectively). For the germination test in fecal plates, the bovine feces collected between 12 and 30 hours after eating the seeds. After 120 days, we evaluated the total amount of plants emerged within the study period (between 12 and 30 hours) and the average number of emerged plants per fecal signs. The results showed that cattle are facilitating the dispersion of butterfly pea, macrotyloma and perennial soybean, but not stylosanthes. The highest survival as the average number of germinated plants in fecal plates achieved by macrotyloma, followed by butterfly pea species and perennial soybean. The cattle were efficient in the pasture colonization process, due to the considerable dispersion of the seeds. This dispersion was not observed for seeds of stylosanthes.