Jan. 7, 1987 
Felipe SStnchez Rorfiitn 
P»0- Box 1191 
Cancun, Quint aria Roo 
Mexico 77500 
Mr. Curt Freese 
World Wildlife Fund 
1255 Tnenty-Third Street NW 
Washington B.C. 20037 
Bear Curt" 
We had a meeting with Jim Lynch last december to evaluate the forage 
project* I am sure he’ll talk about that with you. The project is 
working as we had planned; we are getting better yields than we 
expected. 16 consecutive corn harvests have been made, and the 
projected annual yield of this system is 300 tons/hectare/year of green 
corn forage. A group of 6 male sheep were grown with this forage as the 
main component of their feed. We are pretty sure that a growth rate of 
800 grams/week/aniTfsal is feasible. In our first trial the increase rate 
was lower, but the animals we brought had parasites and we didn’t 
realize they were sick until 7 weeks had passed. After giving them some 
medicines we had a very good and stable weight increase rate, 
ye supplemented the corn with Ramon (Brosimun AlicastrurA) leaves and 
branches, Ramon is a traditional forage in the penninsula and has a 
high protein content. We have planted several other crops to evaluate 
them in terms of yield, costs, and food value so we can end the 
experiment in june having determiTied a couple of good diets. The crops 
we are growing now in addition to corn are; 
TAIWAN Grass (Peniseturfi purpureum var. Taiwan) 
Alfalfa 
Swiss Chard 
Ibes i a local bean with high protein content ) 
Taiwan grass has the same feed value as corn forage but is cheaper 
and easier to grow here, so if yields are similar it will be a better 
alternative. Costs are reasonable. A farriier can make soBie profits out 
of this system, but it can’t compete with the costs of extensive cattle 
operatioris outside of the perinirisula. We have kept track of tradi tiorial 
operations here in Quintana Roo, and we found out that people are losing 
a great amount of money in extensive ranching. The amount of forest you 
have to cut down to grow a single head makes it an unprof i table 
i nvestment, Still, fuany people keep cutting big surfaces for cattle but 
I think we have a better alternative for them here. In- fact, we have 
tried to keep this experinient secret but sorfiehow there are a lot-of 
f 
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