WHITE CLOVER BIOMASS PRODUCTIVITY AT DIFFERENT HARVEST FREQUENCIES AND FERTILIZATION WITH DIGESTATE REGIMES

Abstract

White clover is the most widely used legume in grasslands associated with grasses for grazing livestock in temperate zones around the world. The aim of this study was to evaluate fertilization with digestate, at different concentrations and harvest frequencies, on the dry matter yield, height, and morphological composition of white clover under greenhouse-type plastic tunnel conditions. Digestate concentrations of 0, 20, 40, and 60% and cutting frequencies of 4, 5, and 6 weeks were used. A randomized block design with a 4×3 factorial arrangement was used, with four replicates per treatment. Differences between treatments were analyzed using Tukey's test (P<0.05), using the Factorial ANOVA procedure of SAS software. The results showed that the 60% digestate concentration recorded the highest dry matter yield (196%), dry leaf weight (178%), petiole weight (246%), crop growth rate (221%), and plant height (25%) compared to the unfertilized control. Harvest frequency determined (P<0.05) height, growth rate, stolon weight, and leaf weight. It is concluded that combined management of fertilization with digestate and cutting frequencies influenced all variables evaluated in this experiment, except for stolon weight.