Title:

The potential of reseeding Anthephora pubescens and other climax grasses to re-establish them at the Waterberg Plateau Park, central Namibia (Research Proposal)

Publication Year:
2016
Abstract:

Grass reseeding technology has been used successfully as a means of rehabilitating degraded rangelands in East Africa as well as in South Africa. Despite the well-known success of grass reseeding technologies in combating land degradation in the semi-arid environment of other countries, Namibia is yet to practise large scale or formal reseeding programmes of reseeding grasses. The Waterberg Plateau Park had 50% vegetation cover of Anthephora pubescens in the 1980’s at the site called Anthephora, but due to the establishment of a water point nearby as a management practice, it led to overgrazing drastically reducing the population of climax grasses. The issue of drastic declines in climax grass species is not only restricted to the Waterberg Plateau Park, as most Namibian rangelands are degraded mainly due to overgrazing. The study will therefore be conducted to find out if A.pubescens and Brachiaria nigropedata will be able to re-establish at a site where they once occurred in abundance. This research is therefore an important pilot study that if successful can be implemented as a large scale program to rehabilitate degraded rangelands across Namibia. Seeds were collected at pre-identified sites with similar environmental conditions to the Waterberg Plateau Park and stored in brown paper bags at room temperature away from direct sunlight and moisture. A 60 m x 38 m game proof fence was erected at Anthephora, and 60 (2m x 4m) plots were demarcated in Nested Complete Randomized Block Design with two fixed effects (fertilizer and no fertilizer). Germination trials were done to test the viability of the seeds, with only 2 % of the seeds germinating. During the rainy period the soil in all plots was loosened using a rake and about 2000 seeds were sowed in each of the 48 plots, while the remaining 12 plots were controls. Due to the low rainfall received for January- March 2016 (274.6 mm) all the plots were watered (10 mm) for the first 10 days. After 2 months a species inventory was done in all the plots and all herbaceous plants in 24 of the sowed plots were clipped for production measurements. Unexpectedly, none of the sowed grasses established in any of the plots, which is suspected to be due to the low rainfall received. Most of the plots were dominated by Urochloa brachyura, Setaria pumila and many other annual plant species. Further experiments will be done in the greenhouse to investigate optimum conditions required for the germination and establishment of the two grass species, and thereafter field experiments will be done.

Item Type:
Report
Language:
en

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