Mendoza-Castillo et al., 2000. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 12 (4) Article #40

The objective was to determine the effect of the re-growth time (months) on the yield and quality of ramon (Brosimun alicastrum) forage from trees in three locations. Re-growth periods were: 4, 8, 12 and 16 months, in a completely random design with 6, 5 or 4 replications for Xmatkuil, Maxcanu and Temozon locations, respectively. The trees in the first two locations were 2 and 4 years old with heights of 2.6 and 3.9 m, respectively, and were cut back to a trunk height of 1.5m above the ground. In the third location, the trees were 50 years old and were 8m high. In this case, only the foliage was removed, leaving intact the trunk and principal and secondary branches. Forage yield increased as re-growth time increased, with the highest fodder production for the 16-month re-growth with 1.6, 3.4, and 36 kg DM/tree, respectively for the three locations. Period of re-growth had only a minimal effect on the indices of nutritive value (R² of 0.14 and 0.38 for CP; 0.09 and 0.18 for NDF; 0.12 and 0.39 for IVDMD, for leaves and stems respectively). Content of crude protein in dry matter of leaves was in the range of 14.5 to 19.2 with a median value of 17% while IVDM of leaves was in the range of 64 to 89 with median value of 83%. For stems the corresponding values were: 5 to 13 with median of 7.5% for crude protein; and 40 to 57 with median of 50% for IVDMD. It was concluded that 12-months re-growth is the one that gives the best combination of yield and quality of ramón forage. The traditional system of harvesting the foliage (leaving intact the trunk and main ranches) was observed to give much higher production than when the tree was cut back to a stem height of 1.5m