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The Forages Website
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Overview
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Aloha and welcome to the CTAHR's Forages Website! Its purpose is to provide graziers with tropical grass and legume information compiled from research station and on-ranch field plot projects conducted by the Hawaii Cooperative Extension Service, the outreach arm of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.

The forage collection is located at the Mealani Research Station in the heart of Hawaii's beef cattle industry on the Island of Hawaii. The Mealani collection is probably the largest in the Pacific basin, with over 225 grasses and legumes assembled at a single site. Our kikuyu grass germplasm (Pennisetum clandestinum) make up nearly 85 percent of the grass collection, as it is the main pasture and range forage in Hawaii. Other grasses in the collection are comprised of new introductions and grasses that are resistant to the yellow sugarcane aphid (Sipha flava, Forbes). Research information includes yield and nutritional data and aphid resistances scores for the various grasses in the collection. Germplasm materials are made available to the forage-based industries for their pasture and range improvement programs.

The other segment of the collection include the nitrogen-fixing plants known as legumes, which provide high quality feed value for the ruminant animal. Cooperative work with other land grant institutions and federal research agencies has lead to the introduction of new pasture legumes, such as the perennial peanut (Arachis pintoi) and trefoil (Lotus sp.) collection, for evaluation under our local environmental conditions. CTAHR's world-reknowned plant breeder, Dr. James Brewbaker and his team of graduate students have developed lines of high-elevation and psyllid-tolerant Luecaena luecocephala. The collection of 16 selections of this valuable forage, also known as haole koa in Hawaii, are also housed at Mealani.

I hope that you will find the information of value to you … and if you're in the neighborhood, please make arrangements to visit our collection at the Mealani Research Station.

Aloha,
Glen K. Fukumoto
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Last updated on 11/29/02