Aspectos morfológicos e produtivos da Clitoria ternatea L. em diferentes sistemas de cultivo : impacto na diversidade e comportamento de visitantes florais

Abstract

The use of legumes in intercropping with grasses in animal production systems can bring several benefits, such as biological N2 fixation, increase in the nutritional value of the diet and availability of nectar and pollen for pollinating insects, also contributing to greater sustainability and persistence of the system. Thus, the objective was to evaluate morphological and productive aspects of the forage legume butterfly pea (Clitoria ternatea L.), as well as the abundance, diversity and foraging behavior of floral visitors, in different cropping systems (monocropping and intercropping with wild elephant grass genotypes of different plant sizes), at different times of the year. The experiment was carried out at the Carpina Sugarcane Experimental Station, from UFRPE, during the years 2021 and 2022. The experimental design was randomized complete blocks, with four replications. The butterfly pea in monocropping presented greater plant height (40.6 cm), crown width (43.4 cm), branch length (6.8 cm), number of primary branches (3.5 branches plant-1) and number of pods per plant (7.4 pods plant-1). Productivity was higher in monocropping compared to the intercropping with elephant grass, regardless of the time of year. The flowers of the butterfly pea were visited mainly by species of bees and butterflies, highlighting the bee Trigona spinipes, which was the dominant species, regardless of the cultivation system and time of year. The monocropping of butterfly pea has a higher density of floral visitors and the intercropping with tall elephantgrass genotypes showed a higher level of equity than the monocropping. The diversity of floral visitors did not differ between the butterfly pea intercropped with tall elephant grass and the monocropping. It is concluded that the cropping system exerts a greater influence on morphology and productivity of the butterfly pea than the time of year. The occurrence of a wide variety of floral visitors in butterfly pea shows the importance of including this legume in the elephant grass monocropping to maintain diversity and greater equity of floral visitors.