Utilização de cladodios fracionados na propagação de duas espécies de palma forrageira

Abstract

The forage cactus is a species that belongs to the Cactaceae family and has economic and animal feed importance for the Brazilian Northeast. Problems such as the amount of cladodes used to propagate the species are commonly encountered by producers in the region. This work aims to evaluate the use of fractionated cladodes in the cultivation of cactus forage in the species Opuntia ficus-indica and Nopalea cochenilifera. Being held in Santa Maria village, municipality of CariraSE. Using cladodes from the giant palm (Opuntia ficus-indica) and the small palm (Nopalea cochenilifera) acquired from local producers. The experimental design used was in randomized blocks, with four replications forming a 2 x 4 factorial arrangement, where the first factor corresponds to the two species of cactus forage and the second factor the fractionated cladodes (without fractionation, divided into 2, 3 and 4 parts )parts), resulting in 8 treatments. The following characteristics were evaluated: number of shoots per fragment, length and width of sprouted cladodes and area of sprouted cladodes. Data were subjected to analysis of variance and means were compared by Tukey's test, at a 5% probability level. Mortality of 56.25% and 37.5% of the small and giant palm fragments, respectively. Even with the lowest percentage of surviving fragments, the small palm was able to present values for the analyzed variables, whereas the giant palm did not present any value in relation to the analyzed variables. Concluding that it was not possible to be successful in the study and it would be necessary to carry out a new trial, correcting the possible errors in order to succeed in propagating cactus forage.