Assessment and Comparison of Different Methods for Estimating Forage Production (Case Study: Rangeland of Kurdistan Province)

Abstract

Today, in the rangeland management science and determination of range<br />capacity, accurate and true information about range production is crucial. In fact, range<br />production is considered as a basis for range management. The aim of this study was to<br />compare different methods for the estimation of forage production with four sampling<br />methods in the rangelands of Kurdistan province, Iran. The sampling methods were<br />Adelaide technique, double sampling, estimating method, clipping and weighting method<br />(control). A two-way analysis of variance was made to compare the methods and<br />vegetation types. The estimating methods and plant vegetation types were considered as<br />treatments and blocks, respectively. The results showed that Adelaide method had no<br />significant difference with control method and was selected as the best method for<br />estimating the plant production in the rangelands of study area with dominant shrub plants.<br />A significant difference was obtained between control and estimation methods. Therefore,<br />this method had lower accuracy for estimating the production of range plants. The results<br />showed that the composition of range plants was an effective factor on the accuracy of<br />estimating methods and also paying attention to ecosystem variability was an important<br />key to achieve a suitable method in order to estimate the range production. A significant<br />difference was obtained between double sampling method and clipping and weighting<br />method (control). It was due to various plant combinations of the study area. Therefore, the<br />double sampling had lower efficiency than clipping and weighting method to estimate<br />various plant species such as grasses, shrub and herbaceous plants.