Leucaena is a versatile, adaptable, nitrogen-fixing tree widely grown in the tropics as cattle forage. It’s high in protein, and cattle eat it readily. But most people in Hawai‘i know it as the weedy shrub koa haole, covered in rattling brown pods full of seeds.
Over the decades, CTAHR has developed a few seedless, and therefore sterile, hybrids of Leucaena that won’t become weedy. Now, the research team is eager to test out these seedless forage trees across the diverse growing conditions in our state.
To develop funding proposals for research and Extension, the team has developed a Leucaena as Cattle Forage survey. Ranchers and livestock producers: please indicate your level of interest in Leucaena as cattle forage, as well as your needs and challenges of adopting it.
The survey is anonymous and takes 5 to 10 minutes. Your participation will help shape the objectives and improve the team’s chances of obtaining funding to make the outputs more informative and useful for Hawai‘i. For questions, please contact Travis Idol at idol@hawaii.edu.