Determination of botanical composition, yield, capacity and condition of lowland pastures in eastern Anatolian region of Turkey

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the vegetation-covered area, botanical composition, yield, quality, capacity, condition and health of seven lowland pastures in Bingol province, Turkey. Thirty-three plant species were identified during the study. Twenty-nine of these species were found to be invaders, two were increasers, and two were decreasers. The most common species in the pastures were Trifolium repens, Eremopoa persica, Poabulbosa and Gundela tournefort. The rate of the vegetation-covered area of the pastures was determined to be 97.4%, the rate of legumes in the botanical composition was 32.7%, the rate of grasses was 50.0% and the rate of other family plants was 17.3%. The average of pastures had plant height of 24.2 cm, green fodder yield of 5820 kg/ha, dry matter yield of 1290 kg/ha, crude protein content of 19.5%, acid detergent fiber (ADF) content of 29.1%, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) content of 44.4%, P content of 0.37%, K content of 2.55%, Ca content of 1.30% and Mg content of 0.33%. It was found that the capacity of the pastures varied between 3.3 and 88.5 animal units (AU), with an average of 32.2 AU. In evaluating the condition of the pastures, it was found that 4 pastures were classified as 'medium-healthy' and 3 pastures were classified as 'good-healthy'. It was concluded that appropriate grazing systems should be applied to lowland pastures and that current yield and quality can be increased through fertilization.