Presentation made at the WCCA 2001 event in Brisbane, Australia.

1. Murdoch University :
 ECCAL: Eastern Cape Community Arable Land Project
 SIMLESA: Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume
Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa
Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Presented by
Dr. Anabel Vivas-Marfisi
Centre for Rhizobium Studies

2. Murdoch in ECCAL 2007-2011 eastern Cape
RSA:
• Use of Conservation
Agriculture in community
grasslands in South Africa by:
 reducing tillage to improve pasture production
on marginal lands
 use of legumes in maize systems

3. Annual re-seeding and resilient legumes sown into
grasslands to provide N and winter feed
Direct drilling (CA) at Rockcliffe

4. • Perennial species
August 1, 2007-Lushington
– Trifolium repens
– Medicago sativa
– Lotus corniculatus
– Lotononis bainesii
– Lespedeza cuneata
– Desmodium intortum
• Annual species
– Trifolium hirtum
– Trifolium vesiculosum
– Biserrula pelecinus
– Medicago polymorpha
– Ornithopus compressus

5. Legumes still present in March 2010

6. March 2010

7. High grazing pressure

8. Persistence 2007-2011

9. Annual legumes were also tested in maize rotations
-could have application in SIMLESA
Summer maize thriving after annual legume in winter 2010

10. Murdoch in SIMLESA:
• 2011:
• Field trials in Ethiopia set-up in March 2011
• (Pieter Conradie, Lambert Brau)
 Inoculation and BNF in Legume/Maize cropping systems
(Bako and Hawassa sites)
• Proposed Field trials in Malawi and Mozambique
 To promote the uptake and development of Rhizobium
technology-Legume inoculant manufacture

11. Murdoch in SIMLESA:
• Murdoch staff available to assist in:
 Legume inoculant manufacture and quality control
 Inoculation experiments
 Nitrogen fixation and transfer
 Specialist training classes
 PhD and MSc
 Scientist exchange

12. Murdoch expertise
• Rhizobiology
• Resilient and re-seeding legumes
• Nitrogen fixation in farming systems
CRS African team:
 Dr Anabel
Vivas-Marfisi
 Pieter
Conradie
 Prof John
Howieson
 Dr Ron
Yates