Evaluation of Seeding Strategies of Bahiagrass and Pintoi Peanut on Pasture Establishment.

Pintoi peanut (Arachis pintoi Krap. And Greg.) is a feasible warm-season perennial legume to be intercropped in warm-season perennial grass pastures in Florida; however, there is limited information about establishment of bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flugge) and pintoi peanut available in the literature. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the establishment of bahiagrass and pintoi peanut alone or intercropped. Experiment was conducted in Ona, FL from June to October of 2014 and 2015.Treatments were the split-plot arrangement of pintoi peanut alone, bahiagrass alone or bahiagrass-pintoi peanut mixtures (main plot), with or without 50 kg ha^-1 N fertilization (sub plot), distributed in a complete randomized blocks design with four replicates. Seeding rates for bahiagrass and pintoi peanut were 25 and 10 kg ha^-1, respectively. Plots (4x4 m) were fertilized with N 32 d after seeding. Plots were mowed at 10 cm stubble height every 28 d. The intercropping treatment had lesser bahiagrass plant density than bahiagrass alone (40 vs. 51 plants m^-2). However, the intercropped and pintoi peanut alone treatments had similar pintoi peanut plant density (mean = 6.2 plants m^-2). Intercropping treatment did not affect bahiagrass proportion in the herbage mass (mean = 10.7%) or ground coverage (mean = 15.9%). Similarly, intercropping did not affect pintoi peanut proportion in the herbage mass (mean = 1.3%) and ground coverage (mean = 2.3%). Nitrogen fertilization increased bahiagrass ground coverage (13.3 vs. 8.2%). Proportion of weeds in the herbage mass 112 d after seeding was not affected by seeding strategy (mean = 77.6%), however, weed ground coverage was lesser for bahiagrass alone (88.6%) when compared to pintoi alone (97.6%) or intercropping (92.3%). Intercropping bahiagrass-pintoi peanut is more detrimental to bahiagrass than pintoi peanut establishment. Nitrogen fertilization was beneficial to improve bahiagrass establishment with no negative impact on pintoi peanut.