Forage Offer in a Silvopastoral System at the Northeast Region ofGuárico State, Venezuela

This study was carried out at the San Jose de Guaribe Municipality, northeast of Guarico state, Venezuela, with the objective to estimate the forage offer in a silvopastoral system during the dry and rainy season of 2007. Three treatments were evaluated: Grazing on Cynodon nlemfuensi , grazing with restricted access to forest for 5 h, and grazing with open access to forest. Fifteen to thirty dual purpose steers were used with a grazing pressure of 6 kg DM/100 kg LW. Animals were assigned to paddocks of 0.5 and 2 ha. Dry matter offer for the grazing grass only was 2,227 and 2,467 kg DM/ha for dry and rainy season, respectively, while when forest was incorporated, offer incremented to 10,800 and 5,926 kg DM/ha, for the same seasons. Also, there was a season effect (P<0.01) with higher forge offer in the dry season, as consequence of litter, foliage and fruits from forest species. It is conclude that dry matter forage duplicates in the rainy season, while in the dry season it is five times higher.