Experimental stylo accessions produce higher yields than commercial pasture legume varieties on light textured soils in southern Queensland.

Abstract

Pasture legumes are the best long-term option to increase productivity of grass pastures for large areas of Australia, however there are no commercially available, summer-growing legume varieties that are well adapted to sandy and loamy textured soils in the frost prone sub-tropics. A recently completed eight-year project collected 40 accessions of legumes from old pasture evaluation trial sites that were sown more than 20 years ago, as well as two roadside locations. These accessions were compared to 10 commercial varieties and three previously shortlisted accessions across six trial sites (three districts and two soil types) in southern Queensland between 2016 – 2019, during drought years. The five highest yielding accessions of stylos were
from two species (Stylosanthes scabra and S. seabrana) and had 39 – 67% higher yields than the best performing commercial variety when averaged across all trials. These accessions also had good disease tolerance and formed effective nodules with commercial rhizobia. The five highest yielding accessions have been shortlisted for release as new varieties due to their potential to significantly improve productivity for the grazing industries in the sub-tropics of Australia.