Track 2‐6‐1: Developing Intensive and Extensive Forage Production with Environment Friendly Technologies and Adoption of Mechanization
Description
The agriculture of seventies in the hot arid zone of India (western Rajasthan) was chiefly the subsistence farming involving rearing of livestock in association with rainfed cultivation of guar, moth and pearl millet. Pasturelands dominate among different land use systems and provide main support to the huge livestock population of the region (Kar et al., 2009). With the advent of Indira Gandhi Canal and commencement of tube-well technology in 1985, livestock based economy saw a change in the land use and large tracts of sewan grass (Lasiurus sindicus) came under the plough. Further, in arid zone as a whole, the density of livestock increased from 50 animal per 100 hectares of grazing land in 1951-52 to 154 during 2012. According to livestock census (2012), the number of animals in the arid zone increased by 41 % between 1951 and 1961 and by 15 % between 1995 and 2012. In terms of adult cattle units (ACU) the livestock pressure was 9.58 million in 1983, which increased to 11.27 million in 2001 and 11.65 in 2012. Local grazing pressures are surpassing the recommended stocking rates of the rangelands at an enormous pace. The pressure was 0.87 ACU/ha in 1981 which increased to 1.02 ACU /ha in 2001 and 1.55 in 2012 against the optimum desirable density of 0.2 ACU/ha (Tiwari and Arya, 2006). The grasslands face two threats: one from land coming under water-intensive agriculture, and the other from indiscriminate use of water from the canal to irrigate these pastures. The increase in grazing pressure and shrinkage of grazing area resulted in severe degradation of the sewan pastures to as low as 0.1 t/ha/yr in the desert areas (Roy and Roy, 1996). Since the economy of the hot arid zone is livestock based and improvement in the productivity of the animal husbandry is directly correlated with the improvement in native degraded pasturelands (Sharma, 2013). Burning was recognized as one of the important techniques for the grassland management (Chatterjee and Das, 1989), but burning at large scale found environmentally unsafe. Thus, present study was conducted to find out the effect of different cultural practice on the rejuvenation behaviour of degraded sewan pasture at Chandan (Jaisalmer), Rajasthan (India) during summer 2010.
Citation
Kumawat, Ram Narayan; Santra, Priyabrata; and Sinha, Nawalesh Kumar, "Regeneration Behaviour of Degraded Pasture of Lasiurus sindicus Grass under Different Cultural Practices in Extreme Arid Conditions of Jaisalmer, India" (2020). IGC Proceedings (1993-2023). 7.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/23/2-6-1/7
Included in
Regeneration Behaviour of Degraded Pasture of Lasiurus sindicus Grass under Different Cultural Practices in Extreme Arid Conditions of Jaisalmer, India
The agriculture of seventies in the hot arid zone of India (western Rajasthan) was chiefly the subsistence farming involving rearing of livestock in association with rainfed cultivation of guar, moth and pearl millet. Pasturelands dominate among different land use systems and provide main support to the huge livestock population of the region (Kar et al., 2009). With the advent of Indira Gandhi Canal and commencement of tube-well technology in 1985, livestock based economy saw a change in the land use and large tracts of sewan grass (Lasiurus sindicus) came under the plough. Further, in arid zone as a whole, the density of livestock increased from 50 animal per 100 hectares of grazing land in 1951-52 to 154 during 2012. According to livestock census (2012), the number of animals in the arid zone increased by 41 % between 1951 and 1961 and by 15 % between 1995 and 2012. In terms of adult cattle units (ACU) the livestock pressure was 9.58 million in 1983, which increased to 11.27 million in 2001 and 11.65 in 2012. Local grazing pressures are surpassing the recommended stocking rates of the rangelands at an enormous pace. The pressure was 0.87 ACU/ha in 1981 which increased to 1.02 ACU /ha in 2001 and 1.55 in 2012 against the optimum desirable density of 0.2 ACU/ha (Tiwari and Arya, 2006). The grasslands face two threats: one from land coming under water-intensive agriculture, and the other from indiscriminate use of water from the canal to irrigate these pastures. The increase in grazing pressure and shrinkage of grazing area resulted in severe degradation of the sewan pastures to as low as 0.1 t/ha/yr in the desert areas (Roy and Roy, 1996). Since the economy of the hot arid zone is livestock based and improvement in the productivity of the animal husbandry is directly correlated with the improvement in native degraded pasturelands (Sharma, 2013). Burning was recognized as one of the important techniques for the grassland management (Chatterjee and Das, 1989), but burning at large scale found environmentally unsafe. Thus, present study was conducted to find out the effect of different cultural practice on the rejuvenation behaviour of degraded sewan pasture at Chandan (Jaisalmer), Rajasthan (India) during summer 2010.
