Estilosantes Campo Grande: an economical and environmental success forage legume for the tropics

摘要

Estilosantes Campo Grande (ECG) is a tropical forage legume cultivar released by Embrapa Beef Cattle in 2000.It is a seed mixture ( by weight) of breed lines of Stylosanthes cap itata (80% ) and S.macrocephala (20% ).It has become a successful case of tropical legume forage, being spread nowadays in 450 thousand hectares of sown pastures in Brazil alone, in mixture with grasses such as Brachiaria spp., Panicum maximum and A ndropogon gayanus.This area is expected to increase 50% in 2008.It has good adaptation to low fertility sandy soils and it is persistent under grazing (FERNANDES et al.,2005).