Ecorestoration of Banni Grassland - Global Restoration Network

Ecorestoration of
Banni Grassland
favorable environment for the growth of Cyperus
haspan and Cyperus rotundus. Such a favourable
situation prevailed during September 1997. Within
36 hours, the area received about 458 mm rainfall,
which resulted in waterlogging for more than a
fortnight. This enabled the rhizome of C. haspan to
grow enormously and vigorously in and outside
the restoration site, which is less palatable due to
its high fibrous nature. Further, the implementation
of soil amendments carried out about 75 per cent of
the restoration site disturbed the rhizome of C.
haspan. These brought out higher cover and
biomass availability during the initial period in the
unprotected area, which was slightly higher than
the restoration site of Bhirandiyara as well as
unprotected and Prosopis juliflora area of Dhordo
site.
As reported by Christina (1992), the establishment
of quality perennials gradually eliminates the
unwanted annuals like Cyperus haspan. Therefore,
it is likely that the seeds of Sporobolus sp., Cenchrus
sp., Dichanthium annulatum etc., sown in these
areas would gradually replace or eliminate the
Cyperus haspan after its establishment due to
competition. Further, drier condition generally
affects the survival of Cyperus haspan whereas
the perennial species sown in this area are capable
of surviving even under less or minimum moisture
availability. This was found true on the narrow
slopes and parts of other sub-compartments of the
Bhirandiyara restoration site. Though the land
condition existed under similar state, protection and
reseeding alone made it possible to replace
domination of Cyperus haspan by productive
perennials in the restoration site.
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In the unprotected area, the species like Aeluropus
logopoides dominates during the latter part of
monsoon. As per locals, the cattle preference for
the Aeluropus logopoides and Eragrostis sp. is
less. Livestock exhibit preferences not only for
certain plant species, but for the same species under
different stages of growth and even for the various
parts of an individual plant (Hafex etal. 1969 and
Arnold etal. 1966).
The species like Cyperus rotundus, Cyperus
haspan and Scirpus sp. are the only species, which
showed a tremendous decrease during the course
of the post monsoon in the restoration site. These
three species require high moisture, therefore, lack
of moisture during November in open grassland
leads to shrinkage and death.
Salinity remains one of the world’s oldest and most
serious problems for plant production. The adverse
effect of salt stress on growth and dry matter production
have been extensively studied (Meiri and
Poljakoff-Mayber 1969, Tal 1971, Greenway et al.
1983, Eumawat e/ al. 1991, Khan et al 1992, Smith et
al. 1992, Rogers and West 1993 and Staley et al.
1993). None of the plants are virtually salt tolerant
to any high degree. (Gour and Kumar, 1993). It was
reported that, salt tolerance increases with growth
of the plant (Gill 1985, 1987 and 1988). Contrary to
this, it was observed from the present study that,
even saline tolerant species like Aeluropus
logopoides and Sporobolus sp., showed decreasing
productivity with the increasing salinity.