MARGINAL ZONE

What pasture cultivars?

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Farming zones in WANA	Overview of the zone	GUIDE FOR FARMERS AND EXTENSION AGENTS	TECHNICAL BACKUP FOR EXTENSION PROGRAMS	POLICY MAKERS AND PROJECT PLANNERS
HIGH RAINFALL ZONE ABOVE 500 mm	Pasture and forestry	Increased pasture and livestock production	Selecting the pasture species and cultivar	Tenure in the High rainfall zone
CEREAL ZONE 500 mm to 200 mm	Medic overview Deep ploughing overview	Farmers' Guide to cereals and pasture Farmer training kits This is a major section of the site	What cultivar? How does your medic grow?	Arable areas tenure Policy ideas
MARGINAL ZONE 250 mm to 150 mm	Development objectives	Pasture establishment and grazing management	YOU ARE HERE	Tenure and grazing management
RANGELAND Below 200 mm	Rangeland overview	Action plan for flockowners Water harvesting	What cultivar in the rangeland?	Rangeland tenure Desertification

Physical characteristics

The marginal zone is defined in land use and tenure terms rather than rainfall. It is the zone between the Cereal Zone and the Rangeland where cereal crops are sown for pasture to establish tenure rights over common property rangeland or parcour.

In rainfall terms it is usually 250 to 150 mm. Soils are alkaline and suited to medic.

Cultivars.

There are some excellent cultivars available for this rainfall zone. Refer to the selection of cultivars for the cereal zone for a more comprehensive account. What cultivar?

Swani disc medic

Serena burr medic

Herald strand medic

are all suitable for early season and extremely early season cereal and the Marginal Zones from 250 to 150 mm.

Sava snail medic

Parabinga barrel medic

are suitable for early season in the Marginal Zone perhaps 250 to 200 mm.

Seed size

Swani, Serena and Herald have the advantage of small seed. Grazing management will be difficult in this zone as large numbers of sheep cross the zone in spring from the rangeland to the cereal stubbles.

Small seeded medic survive better under conditions of overgrazing.

The snail medics are not recommended and barrel (an intermediate pod size) medic should only form a small part of the mixture.

Practical experience

Libya has the greatest amount of experience in sowing large areas (5,000 to 10,000 ha) of the marginal zone and rangeland to medic.

Large areas of medic were sown using imported seed from Australia and conventional seeding equipment.

The cultivars used were the older ones than have been replaced by the ones listed above.

For example Harbinger was used rather than the newer Herald and Cyprus rather than the newer Parabinga.

Some of the principle areas in eastern Libya were:

Benghazi plain between Benghazi and Jebel al Akhdar.

Wadi Karouba south of the jebel.

Wadi al Bab south of the jebel.

In the west there were many areas sown but the medic pastures at Adjulat near the Tunisian border are of the greatest interest as the rainfall is below 150 mm.