JOURNAL OF RANGELAND SCIENCE
Year:2013 | Volume:3 | Issue:4|Papers Count:8

In order to study of ecological and phenological traits of Ferulago angulata as an important medicinal plant, this research was conducted in Hezar Mountains and Bondareh Henza in Kerman province, Iran. Random samples of this plant were taken and their vegetation habitat conditions and their growth characteristics including height of collar leaves, height of flower stem, flower stem number and forage production were recorded and categorized. Physical and chemical soil characteristics (soil texture, acidity, soil Electrical Conductivity (EC), absorbable phosphorus and potassium, and the percent of organic carbon) were examined by monthly interval at a soil depth of 30 cm from March to September. All characteristics were analyzed using factorial experiment with two factors of sites and months. Results showed that this species grow quite satisfactorily in the foothills elevation of 2750 m to 3540 m above sea level as long as it received more than 200 mm annual precipitation. The soil EC was less than 1 ds/m and acidity was ranged from 7.5 to 7.8. Canopy cover in Henza and Babzangi were 15.7% and 6.1%, respectively. Results showed that growth indices as height of collar leaves and forage production were high at the Babzangi sites, while the height of flower stem was important in Henza. For phenological process, the results indicated that plant germination started from the end of March-April and continued to the end of summer; flowering started from May-June; seeding completed in June-July and dried out completely by end of summer. Moreover in winter, the plants were dormant.

This research was conducted to investigate the factors contributing to the failure in the forestry and rangeland by-product cooperative companies in Lorestan province, Iran. A descriptive-correlative research design was used. The statistical populations were 1100 people divided into two groups of experts from natural resource agency in Lorestan province and members of cooperative companies. The sample size was 183 persons. Sampling method was simple random type using Neyman–Pearson model. Data were analyzed based on descriptive statistics (T-Test) and Pearson correlation method. Single-sample t-test results showed that the views of the two groups on the effects of technical and economic barriers causing failure in cooperatives companies were the same, but the expert's views were different for managerial, educational, cultural, social, and legal indicators. Also the results of independent t-test between the two groups showed that the views of both experts and members for economic, managerial, educational, and legal barriers were the same, but their opinions for cultural, social and technical barriers were different. The results of cooperatives’ member's views ranked indicators as managerial, legal, educational, cultural, social, economic, and technical barriers. For the views of experts they were ranked as cultural, social, managerial, economic, legal, technical, and educational barriers.

Plant biomass is an important factor for determining arid and semi-arid rangelands capacity. Due to the lack of proper and annual sampling of rangelands, there are no suitable data to determine biomass, range condition and proper range management operations. Plant biomass is one of the measurable attributes that can be assessed in rangeland studies. Since the clip and weight method is destructive and time-consuming, green biomass was estimated by using dimensional parameters (Plant Allometry) including canopy cover, length and width of diameters. Field sampling was done using seventy 2×2 m quadrats along five 100 m transects. The data were analyzed by stepwise regression. The results showed that the fresh and dry biomass showed significant positive correlations with canopy cover, the length and width of diameters of Halocnemum strobilaceum shrub (p<0.05). The results of stepwise regression showed that just canopy cover and diameter length were remained in the final model, so that 80.2% of biomass variations were explained by canopy cover and diameter length.

Erosion is one of the important social-economic problems in Iranian catchments that have been posed by surface water vastness and runoff production. So, the study of water resources, soil erosion and effective factors is of high importance. Gully erosion also extends in many parts of Iran and its study particularly in viewpoint of sediment yield is therefore very important and should be taken into account. In order to investigate the relationships between sediment yield of gully erosion and rainfall parameters such as amount, intensity and duration of them, the present study was conducted in Alashtar, Lorestan province, Iran. For this purpose, 18 digitalized linear and frontal gullies have been identified and morphological characteristics of the gullies were specified at the beginning and after five Storm Runoff productions in November 2007 to May 2008. Then, using matrix correlation and regression analysis, the most effective factor in the sedimentation of Gully erosion was determined. The results have showed that the most important climatic factors that can be pointed out with respect to the sedimentation of gullies were the maximum and average rainfall intensities. Results of regression analysis have also indicated that the maximum intensity of rainfall is the most important factor in the study area and has the ability to estimate sediment and erosion rates caused by the storms with the coefficient of determination as (R2=0.91) and the standard error value of 18.8.

In recent years, studying the dietary preferences and livestock grazing behavior has attracted lots of attention due to manage and improve the efficiency of rangelands. So, in this study the foraging behavior and diet selection of Tali goat was investigated in the Chabahar Rangeland during 2008-2010. Data were collected and analyzed for speeds of livestock, covered distance, time of grazing, resting, and walking for months of grazing (February to May) as replications over 3 years. To determine the preference value, time recorder method was used. Time of grazing of specific plant species by livestock was monthly recorded and analyzed, across February to April. Results showed that Launaea mucronata species of annual broad-leaved had the highest preference value while two species of Sporobolus arabicus and Lotononis platycarpos had the lowest ones. All the measured parameters of grazing behavior had no significant differences during the studied years. The resting time rates of various months had significant differences. Accordingly, the highest resting time rate could be attributed to May whereas this rate was likely to be reduced during February, March and April. The result of the study will therefore be useful in planning a grazing strategy and determination of carrying capacity for livestock grazing in the studied rangelands. Also the findings help us in rehabilitate Chabahar rangelands, with palatably species for the Tali goats.

Using satellite imagery for the study of Earth's resources is attended by many researchers. In fact, the various phenomena have different spectral response in electromagnetic radiation. One major application of satellite data is the classification of land cover. In recent years, a number of classification algorithms have been developed for classification of remote sensing data. One of the most notable is the decision tree. The aim of this study was to compare three types of decision trees split algorithm for land cover classification in Doviraj catchment in Ilam province, Iran. For this, propose, first, the geometric and radiometric corrections were performed on the 2007 ETM+data. Field data as training sites were collected in the various classes of land use. The results of image classification accuracy assessment showed that the Gini split classification. With kappa value 89.98 and the entire accuracy 91.17% was significantly higher, then categorization of branching and the branching ratio and Entropy with kappa values of 88.45 and 90.65 and the entire accuracy of 86.21 and 86.15%, respectively.

This research was conducted to identify the limitative factors of forage production suitability in order to achieve the sustainable exploitation of natural ecosystems in Aliabad Watershed in Lorestan in 2013. The field measurements have been done through cutting and weighing method to estimate the forage amount, four-factor method to determine the range condition, trend scale to specify the orientation and appearance, the plant cover percent measurement to categorize the types and desert scroll to separate the land units followed by the classification. At last, all the digital maps of type, orientation, condition and forage production by the help of integration were changed into the final forage production suitability map using specific software ArcGIS 9.3. Results indicate that 6 separated vegetation types have been put in the suitability classes of S1, S2 and S3 for the areas of 972 ha (20.02%), 3478 ha (71.62%) and 406 ha (8.36%), respectively and no part of the given rangelands was placed in non-suitability class (N). Considering the results obtained from final suitability model of range production in this study, it has been found that high slope was the most restricting factor of range suitability. In addition, there were other decreasing factors such as low percentage of vegetation, overgrazing, early grazing, nonconformity of livestock and rangeland balance and changes of ranges into low-yielding dry lands’ farming as well as forage production. It was concluded that the accuracy, simplicity and quickness can be considered as fundamental elements to determine the range suitability using Geographical Information System (GIS) which has been addressed in this study.

Five common range forage including Agropyron intermedium, Bromus tomentellus, Hordeum bulbosum, Cousinia bakhtiarica and Scariolla orientalis, were sampled during three phenological stages, from controlled rangeland stations over five locations in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, Iran. All samples were chemically analyzed for Crude Protein (CP%), in vitro Dry Matter Digestibility (DMD), Organic Mater Digestibility (OMD), Ether Extract (EE), Crude Fiber (CF), total Ash, Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) and Acid Dtergent Fiber (ADF). Results for Crude Protein (CP%) showed significant differences between phenological stages in all of species. Maximum CP (15.2%) was found in vegetation stage of Hordeum bulbosum and the minimum (2.9%) was in seed ripening stage. The CF% was significantly different between phenological stages as well as the species. The minimum and maximum values of CF% were found in Agropyron intermedium in Coosinia bakhtiarica, respectively. Similarly, the minimum values of NDF and ADF were found in vegetative stage of Scariolla orientalis and Agropyron intermedium respectively, but the maximum values were obtained in seed ripening stage of Hordeum bulbosum and Cousinia bakhtiarica. The DMD and OMD% showed slightly reduction passing from vegetation to seed ripening stage in most of the species. The highest DMD and OMD% had been observed in vegetation stage of Scariolla orientalis and the lowest were in Bromus tomentellus. It can be concluded that in the early stage of growth, the quality of forage in range species is adequate for livestock production but during that stage, the greatest problem is its lower quantity. By progress of the vegetation stage toward the seed ripening stage, the nutritive value of all species decreased thus grazing animals oppose to nutrient deficiencies.