DETERMINATION OF FORAGE PRODUCTIVITY, CARRYING CAPACITY AND PALATABILITY OF BROWSE VEGETATION IN ARID RANGELANDS OF CHOLISTAN DESERT (PAKISTAN)

The browse vegetation in Cholistan rangelands of Pakistan have been on decline due to climatic extremes, overgrazing and anthropogenic pressure. Study area is hot arid desert where vegetation grow after rainfall but over grazing, extreme weather, and local comunity pressure for fire wood, timber, and harvesting of plants for varius purposes causing the decline of browse species. Therefore, a study was carried to investigate forage productivity, carrying capacity and palatability of browses. Multiple surveys were conducted from 2011-2012 at twenty range stands and 25 browse species belonging to 12 families were identified. Results revealed that browse productivity was high (8029.1 kg/ha) in wet season as compared to dry season (5422.9 kg/ha), correspondingly carrying capacity was high during wet season (16 ha/AU/Y) than dry season (24 ha/AU/Y). Moreover, during dry season, mostly stands were observed to be overgrazed while in wet season maximum stands were moderately grazed. High carrying capacity and good grazing status of stands in wet season was due to better forage production. Based on palatability classification, 22 species were found to have palatability to varying degree and 3 species were nonpalatable. In palatable species, leaves of 14 species; shoot/stem of 13 species, flower of 4 species, and fruit of 3 species were grazed by livestock, whereas cattle were observed to graze on 7 species; goat and sheep like 10 species each while camel prefer 20 species. The findings of this study indicate that overall the browse productivity of Cholistan rangelands was low and vary according to seasonal rainfall. Therefore, protection, suitable stocking rate and planned grazing is vital to conserve browses ultimately for sustainability of Cholistan rangelands.