Interações em sistema silvipastoril: microclima, produção de forragem e parametrização de modelo para estimativa da produtividade de pastagens de Brachiaria

Abstract

The silvopastoral systems (SSPs) have as objective to increase the sustainability of agriculture, combining the following components: animals, pasture, and trees species. However, such combination changes the environment, mainly the microclimate, the plants growth, and also the animal production. Based on the changes caused by the SSPs, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the microclimate changes in a SSP under grazing, in São Carlos, SP, Brazil, promoted by the presence of trees, to correlate the changes in microclimate with the pasture yield and to parameterize the FAO Agroecological Zone model (FAO-MZA) to estimate the Brachiaria brizantha, growth in full sun, and lately the growth of B. decumbens in a SSP. For that, the micrometeorological variables were continuously monitored by four weather stations distributed in different positions inside the SSP: at 2 m from the trees at east (2mL); at 6 m from the trees at east (6mL); at 6 m from the trees at west (6mO); and at 2 m from the trees at west (2mO), in order to evaluate the microclimate and yield along a transect between two rows of trees. Another weather station was also installed out of the SSP, in a full sunny condition, and it was considered as reference. The biometric characteristics and the yield of the pasture plants were also measured during seven cycles of 35 days. During each crop cycle, five evaluations were done to determine the growth dynamics of the plants. These data were used to parameterize the FAO-MZA model for estimating the B. decumbens and B. brizantha yields. The results showed that the microclimate was modified by the presence of trees, but with the intensity of change depending on the level of shading, the season of year (solar declination), the orientation of the rows, the vertical influence of the tree canopy to retain the long-wave radiation, and the wind speed. Regarding the variables related to the pasture, the shading affected the yield and the biometric characteristics of the plants, in the first three cycles, when more than 50% shading occurred, there was a reduction of yield and leaf area index, as a consequence of the increase in plant height and specific leaf area (AFE), as a strategy to increase the uptake of solar energy. However, when water and/or thermal stresses occurred no differences were observed among the treatments for all the variables. It demonstrates that the shading loses its influence over the pasture growth when there are other environmental limiting factors. The FAO-MZA model had a good performance for estimating the potential yield for B. brizantha growing in a full sunny condition, and also for the attainable yield of B. decumbens at low levels of shading. However, the model was not able to estimate the attainable yield of B. brizantha in a full sunny condition, which was caused by inconsistencies of the pasture yield data under irrigation, which was not possible to be modeled, and of B. decumbens in high levels of shading, because the model does not consider the plants ́ phenotypic plasticity effect, which makes the pasture more yield conservative under shading.