Experiences with Establishing Legumes as Part of a Ley Pasture in a Low-Input Farming System of the Eastern Amazon, Brazil

In the Eastern Amazon extensive pasture management by smallholders can result in degradation of grassland, leading to unproductive and abandoned agricultural areas (Dias-Filho, 2003). To avoid long and costly restoration of those areas, ley-systems with alternating cropping and pasture phases might offer a promising solution. The inclusion of N-fixing legumes is seen as a suitable method to improve soil fertility during the pasture phase. As mono-cultures seem not to be appropriate, given the phytodiverse climax vegetation in the humid tropics, a combination of various shrub and herbaceous legume species is proposed. Thus, this paper tests a grass-legume mixture to replace the fallow phase in the slash-and-burn agriculture practised by smallholders