e. sheidai karkaj

Biochar is a soil amendment used to improve soil quality and plant productivity in an agricultural application, and there were fewer researches to use it in rangeland species. This study aimed to determine if lignite and wheat straw biochar (WSB) could be used to promote Astragalus podolobus growth, inclusive Plant height, crown diameter, canopy cover, the volume of cover, leaf area, and leaf perimeter. In this study, it is assumed that WSB and lignite’s use will increase the growth of A. podolobus species. A. podolobus, as a palatable shrub from the Leguminosae family, is a native species of Turkmen Sahra.

A greenhouse experiment was designed with (WSB) and lignite, at 1.25%, 2.5%, and 3.75%w/w of soil in six replications. The soil texture was clay loam. Statistical analyses were performed by two-way analysis of variance using the SPSS16 statistical software.

  In lignite application, the highest height, crown diameter, canopy cover, and volume of cover were observed for a 3.75% application rate after the 4th month and were 25.03cm, 23.52cm, 528.65cm2, and 15581cm3, respectively. While the highest values of these parameters for WSB were obtained for 2.5% of the application rate after the fourth month and were 22.62cm, 20.66cm, 401.66cm2, and 11318.3cm3, respectively.

Plant height, crown diameter, canopy cover, the volume of cover, leaf area, and leaf perimeter were promoted by increasing lignite dosage (3.75%) in the soil while nearly all parameters decreased at the same WSB incorporation dose.

Recognizing the environmental factors affecting plants structural trials and biomass is important to conserve plants as well as their ecosystem function, and services. Onobrychis aurea is a valuable forage that is distributed in the marl lands and is considered as an endangered plant species in Iran. In the present study, the ecological characteristics (plant traits) of this species has been investigated in detail.

For this purpose, structural traits and biomass of O. aurea were investigated in 12 ecological units with different topographical and soil conditions. Three soil samples were taken to 15cm depth, (0-15cm) in each ecological unit. The relationship between structural traits and species biomass with environmental factors was tested by redundancy analysis (RDA) method in 2016.

The results indicated that the soil characteristics including clay, lime and silt content play a more important role in the structural and biomass traits of O. aurea evidence show. Spatial and topographical factors, especially elevation and geographical aspects, had a smaller contribution in structural traits and species biomass in comparison with soil factors. Higher structural values were recorded in heavy textured alkaline soils. The slope percentages also have no significant effect on plant characteristics.

The present study indicated that the soil and topographic factors are very important for management of O. aurea. In general, it should also be emphasized that having good knowledge related to plant ecology as well as environmental condition could help managers to conserve and rehabilitate endangered plants.

Awareness about the effects of banqueting and fire on the vegetation in rangeland ecosystems is necessary for appropriate management. Regarding the importance of sustainable rangelands management and the lack of studies about fire and banqueting, the aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of rangeland restoration practices (banqueting with seeding) and also fire on plant functional groups in semi-arid region of Atbatan Rangelands, Bostanabad.
Materials &

For this purpose, after choosing the treatments and control sites, via random-systematic method in each site, thirty 1-m2 plots were established along three 30-meter transects (there were 30 plots for each area and 240 plots in total). The canopy cover of plant species was recorded within the plots and categorized based on plant functional groups.

The results of statistical data analysis showed that the percentage of total cover in the north and south aspects of banqueting with 69.17% and 62.03% was significantly higher than the control sites with 52.53% and 48.03%, respectively. Fire in west aspect has reduced the percentage of vegetation (53.6%) compared to the control site (72.93%) whereas it did not have a significant effect in east aspect.

Generally, it can be stated that banqueting in the north aspect has more and increasing effect on plant functional groups but fire has a more complicated behavior in different topographic conditions (aspect) in relation to the banqueting and in west control site in term of the most studied parameters it has significantly more values than the other sites.