The effect of different clipping intensities on the performance of the range species Cephalaria kotschyi Boiss. & Hohen. in rangeland habitats of Saral region of Kurdistan, Iran
Subject Areas : natural resorces
Kazem Saedi
1
*
,
Farhang Ghasrianin
2
,
Mohammad Fayaz
3
,
Ali Ashraf Jafari
4
1 - Assistant prof., Forests and Rangelands Research Department, Kurdistan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Sanandaj, Iran. *(Corresponding Author)
2 - Retired Research Assistant professors, Reserch Institute of Forests and Rangelands, AREEO, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Retired Research Assistant professors, Reserch Institute of Forests and Rangelands, AREEO, Tehran, Iran.
4 - Research Professor, Reserch Institute of Forests and Rangelands AREEO, Tehran, Iran.
Keywords: simulated grazing, yield, resistance to grazing, vigour,
Abstract :
Background and Objective: Producing basic knowledge about a rangeland ecosystem is a necessary instrument for any management practice in rangelands. This study is one of the prior attempts to determine vulnerability or persistence of key species in response to grazing in Saral rangeland, Kurdistan province, Iran.
Material and Methodology: For assessing clipping effects on important species Cephalaria kotschyi, a 0.5 ha exclosure established before 2007 growing season till 2011 in Zardawan paddock. Inside the exclosure, 40 plants selected of which 10 replications allocated to a specific treatment of ocular clipping of the 20-40, 40-60, and 60-80 % of aboveground annual growth. 10 replications were assigned as control (unclipped) plants. The grazing season in the traditional livestock grazing system called "Shagaldari" is about 3-4 months. Clippings were done every month for the three-month current grazing season. Monthly-clipped plant materials were dried to calculate the accurate clipping intensity as well as the residues of all plants (except controls) at the end of growth season. Each year, vigor, mortality, plant maximum height, yield, and reproductive shoot number measured or estimated. This was done for 4 years. In the fifth year, to monitor the effects of clipping treatments in the resting growing season, these attributes were measured without clipping. Split plot in time was used as the statistical design. During these four years, only one case of death was recorded among the 40 selected plants. Duncan's multiple range test was used to compare the means.
Findings: The results well indicate a much higher adaptability of this species to livestock grazing; This means that the more they clipped, the more the production of the measured attributes were significantly different at the level of P ≤ 0.05 compared to other clipping levels and even compared to the control. The average production of the plants of different treatments of light clipping in the first year are almost in the same group, but the trend of other treatments has increased stepwise from light to heavy treatment, and the slope of this change has clearly increased from the first year to the last year. Like the production values, the final height in the first year of all the treatments and the control were almost in the same category and this lack of significant difference for this attribute remained almost constant in all years. Except for the increase in the number of inflorescences in the treatment of light clipping in the last year by the amount of one group, there was no significant difference between the treatments in any of the years of measurement of this attribute.
Discussion and Conclusion: Since a constant increasing trend was observed with increasing clipping intensity, it may maintain its production efficiency even if more than 70% is clipped, but the results of the following growing season without clipping showed the the necessity of the Cephalaria kotschyi population's need to rest. It seems that the relatively dense population of this species in the area is the result of all factors, including the interaction of grazing and interspecies competition.
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