Serradella prospects at Esperance

Yellow serradells is a promising introduced annual legume suitable for some of Western Australia\u27s well drained sandy acid soils where other pasture legumes failto persist. In the Esperance area serradella grows siccessfully on some sandy soils more than 0.5 metres deep. I develops deep roots rapidly - up to three times deeper than subterranean clover - and this is probably the main reason for its persistance. At present only two late maturing, registered serradella cultivars are available to farmers in southern Australia. This article describes research at Esperance to delect earlier flowering cultivars for persistence in areas with less than 400 millimetres average annual rainfall, and to markedly increase pasture production and soil nitrogen build up on the deeper sands and acid soils