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Halophytes As Forages in Saline Landscapes: Interactions Between Plant Genotype and Environment Change Their Feeding Value to Ruminants

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Halophytes As Forages in Saline Landscapes: Interactions Between Plant Genotype and Environment Change Their Feeding Value to Ruminants Iraq Salinity Project Technical Report 17 Halophytes as forages in saline landscapes: interactions between plant genotype and environment change their feeding value to ruminants Reporters: Hayley C. Norman, David G. Masters and Edward G Barrett-Lennard The Iraq Salinity Project is an initiative of Government of Iraq, Ministries of Agriculture, Water Resources, Higher Education, Environment, and Science and Technology, and an international research team led by ICARDA – the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, in partnership with the University of Western Australia, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research organization (CSIRO) of Australia, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sri Lanka, and the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This research is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), AusAID and the Italian Government. This technical report series captures and documents the work in progress of the Iraq Salinity Project, in its seven research themes, working at the regional, farm and irrigation system scales. Technical reports feed into the Iraq Salinity Assessment, a synthesis and solutions to solving the problem: Situation Analysis (Report 1); Approaches and Solutions (Report 2) and Investment Options (Report 2). Key words: southern Iraq, central Iraq, spatial distribution, remote sensing, irrigation, salinity mapping. This report was written and compiled by Hayley C. Norman, David G. Masters and Edward G Barrett-Lennard With Dr Weicheng Wu (Leader), Dr Feras Ziadat (Co-Leader), Dr Eddy De Pauw-International Centre of Agriculture Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Richard Soppe (SCIRO) and Alexander Platonov (IWMI). http://icarda.org/iraq-salinity-project/teaser 2 1 Halophytes as forages in saline landscapes: interactions between plant 2 genotype and environment change their feeding value to ruminants 3 Hayley C. Norman1, David G. Masters2 and Edward G Barrett-Lennard3 4 5 6 1 CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Sciences and Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, Private Bag 5, Wembley, 7 Western Australia, 6913. Email: [email protected] 8 9 2 CSIRO Livestock Industries, Private Bag 5, Wembley, Western Australia, 6913 and School of Animal Biology, 10 The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley Western Australia, 6009. Email: 11 [email protected] 12 13 3 Corresponding Author. Centre for Ecohydrology, School of Plant Biology and Department of Agriculture and 14 Food of WA (M084), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley Western Australia, 15 6009. Email: [email protected]. Phone: +61 8 6488 1506. Fax: +61 86488 1108. 16 17 18 1 1 Summary 2 This report focuses on three factors that affect livestock production using halophytes – 3 biomass production, nutritive value (NV) of the biomass and voluntary feed intake (VFI). 4 The growth of halophytic forages is widely recognized as a means for using saline land and 5 water, but this study aim to assess the factors affecting the utilisation of this biomass by 6 ruminants such as sheep, cattle and goats. Biomass production depends on plant species, 7 genotype, the degree of abiotic stress (salinity, waterlogging), agronomic management and 8 the interaction between genotypes and the abiotic environment. Production in irrigated 9 systems is about 10-times that of dryland systems. NV relates to the efficiency of nutrient use 10 by animals and is influenced by plant species, genotype and genotype x environment 11 interactions. Halophytes typically contain lower metabolisable energy than traditional forages 12 and most do not have enough energy for liveweight maintenance. Chenopods generally have 13 high crude protein, sulphur and minerals, which are critical to ruminant production. However 14 oxalate, mineral toxicities and induced deficiencies can have adverse effects on animals. 15 Antioxidants that halophytes synthesise to detoxify reactive oxygen species may provide 16 precursors of vitamins A and E, helping to alleviate deficiency and improve meat quality. 17 VFI refers to the amount of feed that can be ingested by grazing animals. It is regulated by 18 complex feedback between the stomach and central nervous system. VFI may be restricted by 19 high concentrations of indigestible fibre, salt, and minerals and toxins, such as oxalate and 20 nitrate. The productivity of saline agricultural systems may be improved by increasing 21 halophyte feeding value. Increasing metabolisable energy is the most important factor. 22 Measurement of relative palatability by grazing animals may assist in identifying genotypes 23 with higher NV. 24 2 1 Highlights 2 We review the factors affecting livestock production using halophyte fodders. 3 We focus on biomass production, nutritive value and voluntary feed intake. 4 Halophytes have lower metabolisable energy concentrations than other fodders. 5 Voluntary feed intake is also decreased by high indigestible fibre, salt and oxalate. 6 Improving metabolisable energy concentrations is a realistic plant selection goal. 7 8 Keywords: Salinity; herbivore; salt-tolerant; Atriplex; Maireana; Distichlis; Puccinellia; 9 Melilotus 10 3 1 1. Introduction 2 The growth of salt-tolerant forage species for ruminant production offers a major 3 opportunity to use land and water resources that are too saline for conventional crops and 4 forages (Malcolm, 1996; Swingle et al., 1996). It is estimated that 5% of the world’s land 5 surface is cultivated salt-affected land, which includes 19.5% of irrigated agricultural land 6 (Flowers and Yeo, 1995; Ghassemi et al., 1995). Halophytes, representing ~1% of the 7 world’s flora, are plants that can grow and complete their lifecycles in environments with + - 2- 8 high concentrations (greater than 200 mM) of electrolytes (mostly Na and Cl , but also SO4 , 2+ 2+ + 2- 9 Mg , Ca , K and CO3 ) in the root medium (Flowers et al., 1977; Flowers and Colmer, 10 2008). Some authors further distinguish between euhalophytes (plants that show some 11 increase in growth with salinity) and miohalophytes (salt tolerant plants that have their 12 highest growth when irrigated with fresh water) (Glenn and O’Leary, 1985). 13 The list of halophytes used for ruminant feeding systems is dominated by grasses and 14 chenopods (Table 1). Halophytic forages are often used as a drought reserve or to fill annual 15 feed shortages within grazing systems (Le Houérou, 1992; Ben Salem et al., 2010). For 16 example, Atriplex species are used to fill the summer/autumn feed gap typical of 17 Mediterranean-type climates in southern Europe (Papanastasis et al., 2008), Syria (Osman et 18 al., 2006) and Australia (Malcolm and Pol, 1986), and to fill an early winter feed shortage in 19 the Mendoza plain area of Argentina (Guevara et al., 2003). Halophytic grasses can be used 20 to replace conventional hays in feeding systems (Al-Shorepy et al., 2010) and seed meal from 21 Salicornia bigelovii has been used as an alternate protein supplement in mixed rations 22 (Swingle et al., 1996). The incorporation of halophytes into farming systems may also have 23 other advantages such as the lowering of the watertables causing secondary salinity (Barrett- 24 Lennard, 2002; Barrett-Lennard et al., 2005) and improving soil stability (Le Houérou, 1992). 4 1 Achieving grazing value from saline systems is not straight-forward. The reported 2 levels of salt tolerance of forage species can vary widely (Masters et al., 2007) and 3 production is affected by other abiotic stresses such as waterlogging (Barrett-Lennard, 2003; 4 Colmer and Flowers, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2010), sodicity (Qureshi and Barrett-Lennard, 1998) 5 and aridity (Le Houérou, 1992). In dryland systems, spatial heterogeneity in salinity and 6 associated abiotic stresses may lead to a wide variety of functional niches where individual 7 species are unlikely to dominate or thrive at all locations (Norman et al., 2003). Reported 8 levels of annual biomass production vary widely, from as little as 0.4 t edible dry matter 9 (DM)/ha for Atriplex growing in a highly saline and waterlogged environment to 40 t DM/ha 10 for Distichlis spicata irrigated with saline water (Pasternak et al., 1993; Norman et al., 2008). 11 However achieving growth of biomass with saline resources is only one component of saline 12 grazing systems; major challenges remain for the conversion of this biomass into animal 13 products. 14 The vast majority of literature regarding salt-tolerant forages reports physiological 15 mechanisms and agronomic traits such as biomass growth; there are fewer studies that 16 examine utilisation by ruminants. To illustrate this point, we conducted literature searches 17 using the Web of KnowledgeSM search engine. ‘Halophyte and growth’ yielded almost 1000 18 references and ‘halophyte and biomass’ 250 references. ‘Halophyte and sheep or goat’ 19 returned only 29 references and adding the terms ‘nutritive value’, ‘feeding value’ or ‘feed 20 intake’ resulted in less than 5% of the total number achieved for ‘halophyte and biomass’. 21 Why is this area of halophyte research so uncommon when use by ruminants is the key to 22 profitability? One explanation may be that halophytic forages are not considered unique and 23 ruminants will be expected to use them in the same way as conventional forages. Our view is 24 that this is not true: interactions between ruminants and saline forages can be complex and 5 1 there are further difficulties in conducting feeding experiments with forages of low nutritive 2 value or with high levels of anti-nutritional factors. 3 The framework of this review is summarised in Fig. 1. To achieve a better 4 understanding of the impact of halophytic forages on ruminants, we need to understand the 5 influence of the growth environment on traits beyond biomass production, namely nutritive 6 value (NV) and voluntary feed intake (VFI). This review therefore emphasises the 7 importance of biomass, VFI and NV, exploring how interactions between halophytes and 8 their environment change the feeding value to ruminants, and therefore the productivity of the 9 livestock system (Fig.
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