MARDI Res. Bull., (1982) 10, 3: (436-441)

SHORT NOTE

INTEGRATION OF KEDAH.KELANTAN CATTLE WITH OIL PALMS_ A PRELIMINARY REPORT

MOHD. SUKRI HAJI IDRIS*, ROSMAWATI OTHMAN* andMUSADDIN KAMARUDDIN*

Keywords: Integration, trampling, frond damage, weight gain.

RINGKASAN

Satu kajian awal mengenai pemeliharaan lembu Kedah-Kelantan di dalam ladang kelapa sawit muda

telah dijalankan di Stesen MARDI, Kluang. Rumput gu\nea (Panicum maximum) dan kekacang-

kekacang Centrosema pubescens, Desmodium heterophyllum and Peuroria phaseoloids telah ditanam di

antara barisan kelapa sawit yang baru ditanam. Anak-anak lembu jantan baka Kedah-Kelantan telah

dimasukkan ke dalam kawasan percubaan yang telah ditetapkan mengikut satu kadar pembelaan ter-

nakan (stocking rate) yang tetap. Data-data yang diambil termasuk perlakuan tumbesar ternakan,

pengeluaran dan komposisi rumput-kekacang, kerosakan dan perlakuan tumbesar kelapa sawit. Makalah

ini membincangkan beberapa keputusan yang telah didapati dari kajian ini.

INTRODUCTION

The oil palm industry is fast becomingone of the major agricultural industries in

Malaysia. Its contribution tou'ards the na-t ion 's economl is thercfore invaluablc. Bet tcrprices and heavy demands {or pahr oil pro-

vide incentives for farmers to plant oil palrnon their land.

However, oil palm like the rubber treehas a long preharvesting period which meansthat farmers would have no income fromtheir oil palm land for a period of about 3-4years. Any attempt to provide these oil palmsmallholders with preharvesting incomes bymeans of integrated {arming should be en-couraged. This wil l not only secure theireconomy but at the same time maximizestheir land uti l ization. Besides cash crops,livestock production such as cattle, goat andsheep under oil palm should be considered.Pasture {or cattle can be planted in the oilpalm inter-row spaces.

-l 'his integration is in

line with the government policy which tries tobe self-sufficient in the supply of red meat bythe year 1990.

In Malaysia, several researchers had

studied the integration of ruminants $'ith

rubber (LowE, 1969) and coconut (Ae

DLTLLAH S.q,Nr er. a/., 1980). The problems o1

oil palm - cattle integration are sti l l not u'ell

stuclied. Aspects oi animal behavior shouldbe care{ullv obsen'ed so that their introduc-tion * i l l not be detrimental to the oil palm.

I'hus. the objectives of this studv include toobserve the grolrth performance of Kedah-Kelantan cattle in terms of l ive-r.r 'eight gain

uncler Irce graz-ing and cut carry manage-lrrent svstellrs, to examine the effects of theseluranagelrlent systems on the oil palm grou'thancl pro i luct iv i t - r 'ancl last l l to s tudl ' the

economics of cattle rearing under oil palm..

MATERIALS AND METHODS

.l'his preliminarv study u'as conducted at

MARDI Stat ion in Kluang. Land prepara-

tion u as started in June of 1978 l 'hich includ-

ed rreed eradication, ploughing, harrowing.lencing (perimeter and paddock), building olsheds in each paddock, and building a yard

and u ater s-vstem to the area. The size o{ eachpaddock uas 0.67 hectare. The land uasplanted u'ith guinea grass (Panicum ma'

x imum) , Cen t rosema pubescens , Des -modium heteroph.v l lum, and Peuror ia

xMARDI Research Stat ion, Kluang, Johor.

436

phaseoloides at the rate of 4.5, 2.3, 1.7 and1.7 kg per hectare respectively. In a study by

BooKLINKAJoRN (1978). Guinea grass wasshown to be shade tolerant under coconut in

Southern Thailand. The oil palm seedlingswere planted in October 1978 at a density of138 palms per hectare (30' X 30' X 30') andthey were managed according to the recom-mended system. The oil palms were fertilizedat a quarter-yearly interval using compoundfertilizer (CCM 25) at the rate of 5.4 kg/palm/year while the pastures were fertilizedat a half-yearly irlterval using CIRP andMuriate of Potash at the rate of 200 and 100kg/ ha/ yr respectively.

Four types of cat t le , managementsystems under oil palm were tried out with astocking rate based on totai body mass bet-ween720 and 960 kg/ha.

Twenty animals were divided into fourgroups such that each group weighted bet-ween 720-960 kg/ha. Each group \\ 'as ran-domly assigned one of the four treatments asexplained in Table l.

Each treatment consisted of tn'o phases,that is, cut and carry feeding in the shed and

free grazing in the paddock. The duration ofthe cut and carry phase varies between treat-ments, the shortest and the longest being 6and24 months respectively (Table 1). Duringthis phase the animals were fed cut forages odlibitum. After completion of the cut andcarry phase, the animals were allowed to freegrazein the paddocks until June 1981.

The stocking rate was strictly followedduring the trial period. Any group that ex-ceeded 960 kg/ha would have any of itsanimals discarded or replaced with youngeranimals to maintain the720-960 ke/ha stock-ing rate.

All animals were weighted twice monthlyto measure the rate of growth. The composi-tion and I ' ield of pasture (guinea grass andlegumes) under oil palms were measuredthree times per year. Yield of pashtre wasmeasured using quadrat technique such thatsamples taken would represent about 1% ofthe total area in the paddock. Data on fronddamage and palms u'ith flowers and fruitsuere collected tr.r'ice 1'early to study the effectof grazing, if there was any, on oil palm pro-d u c t i v i n .

TABLE 1. NO. OF MONTHS CUT & CARRY AND GRAZING(TrLL 30 .6 .81)

Treatment No. Months Cutand carry

Months grazing Total months

4

q

(control paddockwithout animal)

6(2 .1 .79-26.6 .79)

t2(2 .1 .79-3r . r2 .79)

18(2.r . i9-24.6.80)

24(2.r .79-30.r2.80)

24(27 .6.79-30.6.81)

1 8( 1 .1 .80-30.6 .81)

1 2(2s .6 .80-30.6 .81)

6( 1 . 1 . 8 1 - 3 0 . 6 . 8 1 )

437

TABLE 2. COMPOSITION OF GUINEA GRASS AND LEGUMES1

December 1979 December 1980Treatment

No. 7o guinea % legumes 7o weeds *bare ground

% guinea 7o legumes 7o weeds *bare ground

1

L

4

34.6

35.6

49.2

38.4

53.6

45.9

34.2

4 t . 4

1 1 . 8

18.5

16.6

20.2

47.3

49.4

41.6

53.3

22.9

27.1

16.0

25.9

29.8

23.5

42.4

20.8

rMixture of Desu odium heterophyllum, Centrosems pubescens and Peuroria sp

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Forage Composition and Yield

The composition and yield of forage inindividual paddock was measured by meansof a quadrat. Table 2 shows the compositionof the forage at the end of 1979 and 1980.

Relatively similar percentage of guineagrass and legumes were observed for alltreatments within each year. At the end of thefirst year, forage made up 80-90% of the areawhile weeds and blank spots occupied the re-mainder 10-20%. Drastic changes in theforage composition were observed at the endof the second year. The percentage of guineagrass increased steadily in all treatments.However, the legume population dropped b1'about 50%. This could be attributed to thetough competit ion for sunlight and nutrients.

Encrouchment of weeds could be anotherreason for the decrease in the legume popula-tion. Treatment 3 was affected the most as itsweed population had increased severely froml6Vo to 42Yo w\thin one year.

The total forage yield was comparativelysinri lar for all treatments but was higher intreatment 4 (Table 3). Low grass yield intreatment I u'as mainly due to overgrazingand trampling as the animals were releasedfor free grazing earlier than the other groups.

In December 1980, the total forage yieldreduced by about 50% for all treatments.However treatment I seemed to exhibit thehighest reduction in total forage yield. Thereduction in legume yield was found to bemore drastic than that of grass.

TABLE 3. PRODUCTION OF FRESH GUINEA GRASS AND LEGUMES1(X 1OO KG/HA)

December 1979 December 1980Treatment

No. Guinea Legumes Total Guinea Legumes Total

I)

J

1

1.00

3.03

3.67

3.50

4.50

2.87

t . t 7

3.93

5.50

5.90

4.84

7.43

1.42

2.33

1.83

3.67

0.680.330.420.s0

2 . 1 0

2.66

2.25

4 . 1 7

rMixture oI D€Ju odium heterophyllum, Centrosema pubescens and Peuroria sp.

438

Body Weight Gain

The total body weight gain of theanimals during the cut and carry and freegrazing phases are shown in Table 4. Thetotal body weight gain of animals in treat-ment 2 was 735 kg and was the highestamong the 4 treatments. It was noted thattotal body weight gain increased whenanimals were put at longer free grazingperiod with the exception of treatment 1.Treatment t had the lowest total body weightgain of only 413 kg. The low total gain shownby this group could be related to the lowforage yield in the paddock (Table 3). Whentotal gain was converted to average monthlygain (Table 5), all treatments showed similarvalue during the cut and carry phase.

But there was a tendency for averagemonthly gain to decrease with longer periodof free grazing. Again, this was related to the

availability of forage in the respective treat-ment. However, the overall average monthlygain was similar for all treatments except fortreatment l. The low production of forage intreatment 1 could have caused its overallmonthly gain to be considerably lower thanthe other treatments.

Effect on Oil Palm

The direct effect of cattle grazing underoil palm trees was observed on the fronddamage which was unavoidable since thepalms were relatively small at this early stage.Frond grazing by cattle was categorized intoheavy, light and good (Table 6). The resultsshowed consistent percentage of frondsgrazed in each category. This indicated thatfrond grazing by cattle occurred indiscri-minately and independent of the oil palms'age.

TABLE 4. TOTAL BW GAIN DURING CUT AND CARRYAND GRAZING PERIODS

TreatmentNo.

BW gain(C&C) (ke)

BW gain(grazing) (kg)

Total BW gain(ke)

1

234

62184209385

351

551

s09264

413

735

718

649

TABLE 5. AVERAGE TOTAL BW GAIN PER MONTH

Avg. total gain/month (kg)Treatment

No. Cut and carryperiod

Grazingperiod

Overall*Aug.

1

234

10.3

15.3

1 1 . 6

16.0

14.6

30.6

62.4

44.0

13.8

24.5

23.9

2 t . 6

roverall Avg. : Total gain

No. of months

439

TABLE 6. AVG. % OF FRONDS GRAZED PER PALM (TILL JUNE 1981)

Avg. To of fronds grazed/palmTreatment

No. Heavy Light Good

I

2

3

4

38.5

44.2

33.3

44.8

22.2

2 t . 6

2 t . 6

24.8

39.3

34.2

45.5

32.4

TABLE 7. RECORD OF PALMS WITH FLOWER AND FRUITS(TrLL 30.6.81)

Treatment % palms with % palms with 7o palms withoutNo. flower only flower and fruit flower & fruit

I

234

5(Control palms)

43.9

48.9

34.4

4 t . l

24.4

2 t . 4

8 .9

32.8

2 t . l

46.2

34.7

42.2

32.8

37.8

29.4

Data on palms with flowers and fruits The results from this preliminary obser-

taken from each treatment were recorded vation indicated that cattle rearing in young

until 30.6.81 (Table 7). They revealed that oil palm area produced reasonably good pre-

the effect of length of free grazing period on harvesting income. It was observed that

flowering and fruiting habit of the palms was releasing the animals for {ree grazing at the

almost negligible. However there was a ten- minimum palm age of one year to be more

dency for earlier flowering and fruiting when favourable and beneficial in terms of total

there was no animals introduced into the area body u'eight gain and forage yield. However

as in the control paddock. The control pad- the validity o{ these results will be verified

dock was found to have lower percentage of upon the completion of the trial proper.

oalms without f lower and fruit at the time of' , I:ff .. :1I. 1I.. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSassessment although the difference with the

other treatments was not great. In contrast, The authors wish to express their appre-Nrtts er. al., (1978) found that Bali cattle ciation to the field staff for their assistancegrazing improved pasture under coconut and in the field and to Encik Basery binresulted in an increased yield of coconuts. Mohamad for support and encouragement.

SUMMARY

A preliminary hial was conducted at MARDI Station, Kluang to study the feasibility of integating ,Kedah-Kelantan cattle with young oil palm trees. The oil palm inter-row spaces in the experimental areawere planted with guinea grass (Panicum maximum) mixed with Centrosema pubescens, Desmodiumheterophyllum andPeuroria phaseoloides before Kedah-Kelantan male calves were released at a constantstocking rate. A wide aspect of information was gathered including animal performance, grass-iegumeyields and composition, oil palm growth ind productivity. This paper will discuss some of the resulhobserved during the trial.

440

REFERENCES

Asoulr-an SaNr Raulr and B.q,ssRv MoHA-uao. (1980). Different feeding systemsfor beef cattle in cocoa-coconut small-holdings in Hil ir Perak, MARDIResearch Bulletin (in press).

BooNrr-rNx^lJoRN, P. (1978). Herbage pro-duction of grasses under coconuts inSouthern Thailand. Seminar on Inte-gration of Animals with PlantationCrops. Penang.

Lown, J .S. (1969). The integrat ion ofl i v e s t o c k w i t h r u b b e r . P l a n t e r sBulletin, Rubb. Res. Inst. Malaya. No.9 8 , 1 4 1 .

NIrrs, M and RIra K. (1978). Bali cattlegrazing improved pasture undercoconuts I. Effect of stocking rate onsteer performance and coconut yield.Paper presented at Seminar on Integra-tion of Animals with Plantation Crops,Penang.

441

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