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| Titel |
Suitability of multipurpose trees, shrubs and grasses to rehabilitate
gullies in the sub-humid tropics |
| VerfasserIn |
Ayalew Talema, Bart Muys, Jean Poesen, Roc Padro, Hirko Dibaba, Jan Diels |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2017
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 19 (2017) |
| Datensatznummer |
250148493
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2017-12753.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Vegetation plays a vital role for sustainable rehabilitation of degraded lands. However, the
selection of suitable and effective plant species remains a long-lasting challenge in most parts
of the sub-humid tropics. To address this challenge 18 multipurpose plant species (6 trees, 3
shrubs and 9 grasses), preselected from the regional species pool in Southwest Ethiopia were
planted in severely degraded gullies and monitored from July 2011 to June 2014.
The experiment had a split-plot design with farmyard manure (FYM) application,
as main plot and plant species as sub-plot factors repeated in three blocks. The
study revealed that grasses were the most successful to rehabilitate the gully within
the monitoring period, compared to trees and shrubs. The survival rate of the four
most successful grass species, Chrysopogon zizanioides, Pennisetum macrourum,
Pennisetum polystachion and Pennisetum purpureum ranged from 61 to 90% with
FYM application and from 20 to 85% without FYM, while most of the well-known
indigenous and exotic trees and shrubs failed to survive. For the grass Pennisetum
purpureum, shoot height, shoot and root dry biomass increased by 300%, 342% and 578%
respectively due to FYM application, with a remarkably higher response to FYM
compared to all the other studied species. The overall results demonstrate that severely
degraded lands can be effectively restored by using early successional species such
as locally adapted and selected grasses before the plantation of trees and shrubs. |
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