Leucaena - The productive and sustainable forage legume

Abstract

Research into leucaena’s value as forage in Australia began in the 1950s, but it was not until the 1990s that large-scale adoption gained momentum, with many factors contributing to this lag between first research and uptake of the technology by graziers. Since the 1980s, dedicated champions researchers, advisors and innovative graziers – have worked together to solve the outstanding problems. Improved establishment and management practices have led to markedly increased adoption in the 1990s. Key developments have included:
• solving the mimosine toxicity problem
• more reliable establishment practices, especially weed control
• improved plant and animal management
• improved varieties, seed quality and treatment
• comprehensive economic analysis of the costs and returns
• greater appreciation of the positive and negative
environmental impacts of leucaena.