Determining the appropriate improvement methods for the pastures of eastern Anatolia region of Turkey

Abstract

This study was conducted over a natural pasture located in Agricultural Research and Practice Center of Bingol University for two years (2016-2017) to determine appropriate pasture improvement method to be applied in Eastern Anatolian pastures of Turkey. For this purpose, total of 8 different pasture improvement methods (fertilization, stone picking, weed control and combination of these three methods) were tried in a trial. Effects of improvement methods on green fodder yield, dry matter yield, crude protein content, crude protein yield, fibre (NDF, ADF) contents, relative feed value (RFV) and weightbased botanical composition were investigated. According to the results, the fertilization + stone picking method was more effective on the yield attributes of pastures (green fodder, dry matter and crude protein yields), while fertilization + stone picking + weed control was effective on the quality attributes of pastures (low ADF, NDF and high RFV). Fertilization + stone picking also increased the proportion of grasses, while weed control increased numbers of legumes, but all improvement methods reduced the proportion of other family plants in botanical composition. It was concluded that fertilization + stone picking + weed control was the ideal improvement method for eastern Anatolian pastures of Turkey.