Ecorestoration of Banni Grassland - Global Restoration Network

Ecorestoration of
Banni Grassland
rainfall. Further, due to selling of cow dung from
Banni, the natural supply of manure has been considerably
reduced. It has been reported that, about
a ton of cow dung consists of 75 per cent water and
remaining consists of 4.5 kg nitrogen, 2.3 kg phosphoric
acid and 4.5 kg potash and that the cattle
returns nearly 75 per cent nitrogen, 80 per cent phosphoric
acid and 90 per cent potash obtained from
her feed (Owen 1980). The two-way system; intake
of nutrients through grass feed and its release
through dung facilitate almost no loss or negligible
loss of nutrients from the grassland area. However,
the disruption of this cycle, through selling of cow
dung, in Banni, has gradually affected the soil nutrients
of the area, which in turn has affected plant
growth. Therefore, to increase the soil nutrients of
the restoration site, farmyard manure was added at
the rate of 2 tonnes per ha. This, apart from improving
the nutrient status of the degraded land would
improve the physical properties of the soil such as
permeability, soil structure etc. Also, the chemical
binding of dung with that of soil is known to reduce
the soil salinity to some extent.
3.5 Legume Introduction
Grass-legume mixtures are always desirable because
of their complementary functions in providing nutritive
and palatable forage for livestock. Legumes
usually maintain their quality better than non-legumes
even at maturity and being rich in protein
they enhance the forage value and also add substantially
the needed nitrogen to the soil. Thus,
grasses are directly or indirectly benefited by the
use of nitrogen components manufactured by the
legumes. Legumes are considered as useful and
the cheapest source of nitrogen in pastures. On
death and decay of the legume plant, their roots
and root nodules break down in the soil and release
their stored nitrogen, which then becomes
available to the associated crops.
Therefore, legume species like Afylosia sp.,
Sesbania sp. and Stylo hamata were sown in the
restoration sites. Further, species such as Sesbania
produces high quality fodder, that can also be used
as cattle feed.
3.6 Soil Amendments in Bhirandiyara Restoration
Site
The restoration site selected at Bhirandiyara was
located in a highly saline track of Banni. In this site
experimentation on salinity reduction and control
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was undertaken to improve the grass diversity and
productivity. This site was divided into four equal
compartments, of which, compartment 1 is left under
natural condition where no soil modifications
were carried out. Compartment 2 was ploughed to a
depth of 50 cm to improve the soil permeability,
water infiltration and to break up-surface crust. In
this compartment, organic manure was also added
at the rate of 2 tons/ ha.
To leach the salinity of the research site, a 5 m wide
gentle slopes with a height of 30 cm and with 50 cm
deep and 50 cm wide drainage channels were dug
in the compartment 3. Similar activities, with
changes in the width of the slopes to 3 m and height
of the slopes to 50 cm were made in compartment 4
to study the effects of increasing the slope height
on the grass species diversity and productivity.
The compartment 4 was further sub-divided into;
half the slopes and the trench facing northwest
direction and the other half facing east-west direction.
The basic view of this amendment was to
study the effects of wind borne salt deposition on
the diversity and productivity of grass species
growing on the slopes facing towards and against
wind direction. It is hoped that this will help in generating
an additional information on the deposition
of salt particles through wind action and its impacts
on the productivity of different grass species
growing in the area.
3.7 Soil Amendments in Dhordo Restoration Site
The Dhordo restoration plot encompasses an area
of 200 ha (width 1km x length 2km), located near
village Dhordo. The whole area of the site was
divided into 30m wide strips. Ploughing, adding of
farmyard manure and sowing of grass seeds were
carried out in every alternative strips. Prosopis
juliflora grown inside the fenced site was removed,
except for few Prosopis juliflora, in which the side
branches were removed with a view to change the
architecture of the plant. There is a common view
that the spreading cover of Prosopis juliflora
reduces the underneath ground cover and that the
changed architecture would help in supporting the
underground vegetation. Further, the tree may also
act as a windbreaker.