Effectiveness of Prescribed Fire, Mechanical and Chemical Control in the Management of Rosa Persica in Degraded Rangelands

Invasive plant control is a significant challenge for natural resources management. Rosa persica (Michx ex. Juss.) is one of the invasive species in Iran. It has been rapidly expanded to the areas where it has introduced. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of five treatments: 1) control, 2) fire, 3) cutting, 3) tilling, 4) chemical techniques (glyphsate application) in controlling the expansion of Rosa persica in a degraded rangeland plant community (Rosa persica dominant type) in Markazi province. An experiment was arranged in split plots based on a completely randomized block design with four replications for three consecutive years. We found that the combined methods have played a more effective roles in controlling the Rosa persica and among these methods; fire combined with chemical techniques appeared to be a better option for reducing the abundance of Rosa persica. Also, fire combined with the mechanical removal of the above-ground and fire combined with the mechanical removal of the root reduced population size of Rosa persica, as comapred with the control, however, no significant difference (P<0.05) was found between the two methods. Thus, because of the disturbance in the soil, as a result of the mechanical removal of root, we recommend the use of fire combined with cutting instead of tilling to reduced Rosa persica.