Production of livestock has been low in Eastern Cape rural areas since rangelands have low quality forages to meet animal requirements during winter period. The evaluation of forage annual legumes as feed for livestock production in Eastern Cape, South Africa can reduce feed scarcity during the dry period as they are rich in protein and have great effect on intake and digestibility of livestock. The study evaluated the effects of phosphorus application levels (0kgPkg/ha, 20kgP/ha and 40PkgP/ha), Rhizobium inoculation (with or without) on seedling emergence, plant ground cover, plant nodule numbers, plant height and biomass production of Lablab (cv Rongai). The trial was laid as a Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with two replicates. Treatments (I1P20 and I1P40) were constantly significant (p<0.05) to other treatments with greatest plant seedling emergency (95-98%), plant ground cover (94-100%), plant height (190-255cm) and nodule numbers (10-17). Highest dry matter content was observed in phosphorus treatments at post-anthesis ranging from (30-35%). Greatest total biomass yield (6.357t/ha) was produced at anthesis when highest level of phosphorus and inoculum were used (I1P40). Leaf: stem ratio was observed to decrease with stage of growth. It is therefore, recommended that inoculation and phosphorus fertilization is a requirement for optimum growth of lablab.

Keywords: Harvesting stage, lablab, phosphorus application, Rhizobium