Abstract Improving the productivity and quality of forage resources for ruminants in shaded environment underneath coconuts plantations needs to study the yield and persistence of the species. Under controlled and free grazing regime grasses species of Stenotaphrum secundatum and Brachiaria humidicola cv. Tully showed a good performance in terms of herbage yield and persistence in heavy grazing, and combined well with legumes, especially Arachis pintoi cv. Amarillo. Rotational grazing regime and ideal stocking rate is needed to ensure the productivity of Brachiaria humidicola cv. Tully pasture and daily gain of cattle in coconut based farming. Keywords: evaluation, tropical pasture, grazing regime, coconut, farming.
INTRODUCTION1 The province of North Sulawesi, Indonesia has a high potential of beef cattle grazing under coconut plantation because of its wide area of coconut plantations not intercropped with other grain crops. Free grazing in coconut based farming system is common in this province and other places in Eastern part of Indonesia. However, existing forage resources under coconut plantations consist primarily of naturalized grasses and legumes as well as weed species of low productivity [1]. In previous research programs, some excellent species of grasses and legumes and their yield have been identified [1]. Furthermore, performance evaluation of those promising species under mixed pasture with very light stocking rate has also been reported by [2]. This article as a report of a series of several studies to evaluated the performance of those species under a long term grazing regime. The first series of this report is the results of controlled grazing system reported by [2] and compared with the results of free grazing reported by [3]. The second series of this report is the results of good rotational grazing management in coconut plantation on the performance of Brachiaria humidicola cv. Tully as one of the among promoting species, and the average daily gain of cattle.