THE PROVISION OF PASTURE LEGUMES FOR DIFFICULT ENVIRONMENTS

Early plant introduction in Australia and NZ involved familiar European species and simple general principles. 'First-generation' pasture cultivars in both countries were based on naturalized or cultivated material originally brought by colonists. Later, imported material was systematically used to improve these established varieties and produce 'second-generation' cultivars more closely adapted to local ecological conditions and agronomic systems. This simple approach proved inadequate for new and difficult environments which required different types of plant, and new species were sometimes tried and discarded prematurely because their potential was not fully displayed in the limited material initially available. Experience with Sfylosanthes in Australia shows that full suites of germplasm are necessary to evaluate a new species properly, and that such material should be deliberately and systematically collected from areas of similar or more extreme climate, particular attention being paid to edaphic characteristics. To obtain suitable legumes for the cold dry high country of the South Island collections from homologous regions in places such as Chile, Argentina, Kashmir, and the USSR may be useful. Keywords: plant introduction, Stylosanthes, Lotus, South America, Australia, New Zealand