Abstract

In Lopburi province, there are many livestock, especially ruminants. However, during droughts of long duration, roughage supply is limited. Therefore, most alternative roughages are low in quality with regard to energy, protein and digestibility such as rice straw bagasse and corn husk. Leucaena, a tree legume, drought-tolerant, long-lived and high-protein roughage, offers a viable opportunity to overcome this problem. The present study aimed to evaluate the suitable varieties/lines of Leucaena to use as roughage in In Lopburi province in 2019. The experiment was conducted on 3-years old Leucaena experiment, the treatment consisted of 10 varieties/lines such as Taramba, Cunningham, KU3, KU15, KU19, KU38, KU39, KU45, KU48 and KU56. The field experiment was arranged in RCBD with 4 replications. The data collections were measured plant height, stem/stump and biomass yield was harvested at every 6 months after cutting. The results showed that KU15 and KU56 had high stem/stump in both harvesting times, while plant height of Leucaena varieties/lines were not significantly different. In the second harvesting, KU15 showed high dry weight yield of leaf that had more than check varieties (Taramba and Cunningham). Moreover, it also provided dry weight yield of stem and total biomass closing to Taramba as a commercial variety. The total biomass yield from 2 harvesting cycle, KU15 showed high dry weight yield of leaf, stem and total biomass closing to Taramba, especially dry weight yield of leaf following by KU48, KU45 and KU56. Therefore, KU15 was a suitable line for use as roughage in Lopburi province.