Estimation of Browse Productivity for Acacia seyal (Delile) in Alazzazah Area, Blue Nile State, Sudan

Abstract

Fodder trees and shrubs are crucial sources of animal feed in Sudan, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas. This is because they can fill up the feed gaps in the summer period when grassland growth is limited due to unfavorable weather conditions. The study was conducted in Elnour forest-southeastern Sudan in 2015, which is dominated by <em>Acacia seyal</em>. The objectives of this study were to estimate the browse productivity, and to establish relationships with the crown area for <em>Acacia seyal</em>. The twig-count method described in this study converts a count of twigs to weight of browse by use of an average weight per twig for individual trees. Regression analysis was used to establish relationships between browse biomass and crown area. The average available browse (8.1 kg/ha) and tree density (162 tree/ha) for <em>Acacia seyal </em>was low in the study area that makes the density as the main factor that determine the amount of available browse/ha. Strong positive correlations were found between browse biomass productivity (available and total browse) and crown area with average values of 0.86 and 0.90, respectively. The study concluded that crown area as the main parameters used for predicting the browse biomass productivity. It is recommended that more effort be made to expand the use of more species to investigate the relationships between browse biomass productivity and growth parameters.