The Pata-de-vaca is a plant widely used for landscape and medicinal purposes, as well as for the recovery of degraded areas. Due to this demand, it is necessary the research with focus on the use of alternative substrates for seedling production, aiming to reduce costs. The aim was to evaluate the development and quality of Bauhinia forficata seedlings under different substrates: substrate 1: 45% soil, 45% sand and 10% vermiculite; substrate 2: 45% soil, 45% sand, 10% vermiculite and 108g of controlled release fertilizer for each 30 kg of substrate; substrate 3: 35% soil, 35% sand, 10% vermiculite and 20% of organic poultry; substrate 4: 35% soil, 35% sand, 10% vermiculite and 20% of organic bovine compost; substrate 5: 35% of soil, 35% of sand, 10% of vermiculite and 20% of organic compost swine. The parameters evaluated were: seedling height, neck diameter, dry shoot mass, dry mass of the root, total dry mass, height / diameter ratio, shoot / root ratio, and Dickson quality index. The experimental design was completely randomized, consisting of the 5 treatments in 6 replicates. The bests results were obtained when the seedlings formulated with the addition of slow release fertilizer and the use of organic poultry and bovine compost. Although the treatment with controlled release fertilizer presented the best results, interesting results were observed with the addition of the organic compost of poultry and cattle.