Impact of cattle night corralling on soil properties and vegetation in the semiarid degraded rangeland of Ethiopia

Abstract

In Ethiopia, rangeland degradation is a severe environmental problem. To improve rangeland vegetation cover and support the rangeland-based livelihoods, it is imperative to repair degraded rangeland using different rehabilitative measures. This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of night cattle corralling impact on soil chemical parameters, herbaceous species compositions and biomass yield of degraded rangeland.  To conduct the experiment, severely degraded (SD) and moderately degraded (MD) rangelands with an area size of 30m x10m (300m²) each was identified. Then, each of the selected rangeland types was separated into two paddocks with an area size of 10m x 15m (150 m²). The treatment paddocks of the severely and moderately degraded rangeland were treated by cattle impact tools corralling cattle every night in the paddock for one month (SDT₁ and MDT₁). While the second paddock in both rangeland types was used as a control without cattle impact tools (SDT₂ and MDT₂). A randomized complete block design was used and each treatment was replicated three times. The results showed that soil chemical parameters and herbaceous species compositions in both degraded rangeland paddocks treated with cattle impact tools (SDT₁ and MDT₁) changed significantly (p<0.05) than paddocks without cattle impact tools (SDT₂ and MDT₂). Likewise, there was an increased difference (p<0.05) in biomass yields of 2.98 ton/ha and 5.35ton/ha from severely and moderately degraded rangeland, respectively for paddocks treated with cattle impact tools (SDT₁ and MDT₂), compared to paddocks of biomass yield of 0.98 ton/ha and 2.78 ton/ha without cattle impact tools treatments for SDT₂ and MDT₂ respectively. Thus the result from this study emphasized the advantage of night cattle corralling impact tools for improved soil parameters and herbaceous species compositions of degraded rangeland. Hence, we concluded that employing cattle impact tools to restore degraded rangeland significantly improved soil physico-chemical properties, with ultimate effect on vegetation cover, vegetation compositions and herbaceous biomass yield, attributed from soil seed bank growth.

Bangladesh Journal of Animal Science 51 (4): 152-162