Investigation the relationship between forage production and canopy of plant species in semi-steppe rangelands of Zagheh, Lorestan

One of the main goals of rangeland assessment is to obtain the amount of forage production of rangeland species because it plays an essential role in determining rangeland capacity and grazing management. Measuring the amount of production requires a lot of time and costs, so finding cheap, fast and scientific methods to estimate the amount of production can be a great help in assessing vegetation and rangeland management. The purpose of this study was to find a suitable relationship between the percentage of canopy cover of species and plant classes with their production amount. For this purpose, the percentage of canopy cover of the species was examined during a six-year statistical period within 60 plots (1m2) located along six transects (200 m). In addition, each year, the amount of species production in a quarter of the plots (25% of them) that were caged to prevent possible grazing, was measured by clipping. To determine the amount of total forage production, the regression relationship between canopy cover and species production was used and based on the significance of the equation (p≤ 0.05) and coefficient of determination (R²), the best equation was fitted. The results showed that there was a significant correlation (p≤ 0.01) between production as a dependent variable and the percentage of canopy cover of the species as an independent variable. The coefficient of determination for each of the classes I, II and III were 0.77, 0.87 and 0.92, respectively, which provide the most appropriate linear production-canopy relationship for rangeland management.