| Popis: |
Animal excreta contribute positively to nutrient cycling and can improve the quality of soil (Dubeux Jr. et al. 2009; Carvalho et al. 2010). Cattle excrement, when evenly distributed over a pasture, can help to maintain plant nutrition without the application of fertilizers. The introduction of legumes intercropped with grasses benefits the soil by means of nitrogen fixation. When ruminant animals eat legumes, the feces produced may have lower C:N, C:P, lignin:N and lignin:P ratios, promoting better nutrient return to the soil than when cattle eat only grass. Given the importance of nutrient return from and decomposition time of cattle feces on pastures, the objective of this study was to quantify the decomposition of feces of heifers managed in mixed grassshrubby legume pastures and grass-only pastures. |
