Likhona Cele (M.Sc. Student)
I was born in the rural Eastern Cape where I grew up in a farming community, and this is where my love for Agriculture comes from. I currently hold a BSc Agric degree in Animal Sciences and have a strong passion for food security. I believe that my experiences living in a poorly managed rangeland community where we solely relied on these rangelands to feed our livestock have helped me to choose this career path carefully.
Many smallholder ruminant livestock farmers in South Africa face problems such as feed shortages, leading to improper nutrition for the increasing population of ruminant animals. This is intensified by the severe degradation of natural resources and raises the need for improved soil fertility and land restoration. Chemical fertilizers are usually used to increase soil fertility, but this is not the case for smallholder farmers as they cannot afford these chemical fertilizers. This is why the use of cover crops is essential to protect the soil from harsh weather conditions and bring back lost nutrients to the soil. This study aims to evaluate the adaptability, competitiveness, forage yield and quality of interseeded annual and perennial pasture ley cover crops and their effects on soil quality. Some of the benefits of pasture ley cover crops to the soil include soil moisture retention, reduced soil erosion, and improved soil tilt, which improves water absorption and increases water and nutrient regeneration levels. Cover crops provide an alternative method to reduce weeds and reduce the reliance on herbicides. Because of the high production costs during the dry season due to forage shortages and nutritional inadequacies, an improved forage production system needs to be introduced and adopted by smallholder farmers to overcome the declared fallow period feeding challenges. In that regard, pasture ley cover crops are productive with forage biomass of higher quality in the fallow period.