During the 1990s in
Australia, three species of
Desmanthus were released as
pasture legumes and many other accessions are being evaluated as pasture species for clay soils. The three old released
cultivars are: •
Desmanthus virgatus Cultivar "Marc"(Accession number: CPI 78373) which is described as early flowering, decumbent to ascending, growing 30 to 60 cm tall and originates from Argentina. •
Desmanthus leptophyllus Cultivar "Bayamo" (CPI 82285), mid season flowering, ascending type, 95–135 cm tall, from Cuba •
Desmanthus pubescens Cultivar "Uman" (CPI 92803), late flowering, decumbent shrub, taller and wider spreading than Marc, 40–100 cm tall, from Mexico. Of these three, only the cultivar Marc is still commercially available. In 2015 five new cultivars of Desmanthus named JCU 1 to JCU 5 have been granted PBR and are commercially available as a blend named "Progardes", consisting of
D. bicornutus,
D. leptophyllus and
D. virgatus, these have been developed in Queensland Australia as a pasture legume for semi-arid tropical/subtropical alkaline clay soils. Progardes became available in 2013 in Northern Australia and some 35,000 to 50,000 ha has been already sown into native and
buffelgrass pasture. In recent times additional cultivars have seen developed including cv JCU 6,7,8 and 9. These can also be included in the Progardes blend. The breeding of intraspecific and interspecific crosses are well advanced. In terms of animal production Progardes has been to shown to enhance beef production. In its native range in the United States, the
Land Institute is selectively breeding the widely distributed Illinois bundleflower (
Desmanthus illinoensis) to be a
perennial seed crop for human food, in addition to forage / pasture. It offers many of the advantages in terms of nutrition,
protein and
nitrogen fixation as
soybeans or
alfalfa, but as a perennial. Perennial crops tend to require less input of chemicals and energy, and less weed control, for comparable or higher yields to annuals in many systems. ==Species==