Production and behavior of Angus-Nellore heifers in integrated agricultural production systems

• Grant number: 16/25385-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Production
• Principal researcher: Cristiana Andrighetto
• Grantee: Juliana Mara de Freitas Santos
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Tecnológicas. Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Dracena. Dracena , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The integrated agricultural production systems are used for the recovery of degraded areas, using crops for purposes of grain production to repay in part the costs of recovery of pastures and the use of residual nutrients of crops for the production forage. In addition to farming and pasture, it uses the tree component. The use of agroforestry system has beneficial effects, such as the incorporation of nutrients and enhancement of soil microbial activity, improving the thermal comfort for the animals and the possibility of increasing the nutritional value of forage. The objective of this study is to evaluate the pasture characteristics, performance and behavior crossbred heifers Angus-Nelore in crop-livestock-forest integration systems (iCLF) with two densities of trees (196 and 448 eucalyptus trees per hectare) and crop-livestock integration (iCL). The experiment will be conducted in APTA - Andradina, SP. It will realized four behavior in the experiment period, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the summer and winter seasons, evaluations will performed by instantaneous and continuous sampling with focal sampling and sampling interval of 10 minutes, directly, for continuous periods of 12 hours. The following behaviors will observed: grazing, rumination (standing and lying), idle (standing and lying) , and other activities, which included: interaction with other animals, interaction with trees, behavior of drinking water, going to supplement trough, urinating and defecating, displacement and others. On the same day of the behavior the following climatic data will evaluated: black globe temperature, temperature and relative humidity, wind speed, in the winter and summer seasons. From these, the following thermal comfort indexes will calculated: temperature and humidity index, black globe temperature and humidity index, radiant thermal load index. For forage evaluation: the total dry mass, forage morphological composition, grazing simulation and animal development daily weight gain, weight gain per area and stocking rate per area. The experimental will be design in blocks with 3 treatments and 4 repetitions. The data will submitted to statistical analysis using the R program for the implementation of the analysis of variance and Tukey's test at a significance level of 5%. (AU)