IMPACT OF GRAZING ON THE PLANT COMPOSITION AND DOMINANCE OF NATURAL GRASSLAND AND ESTABLISHED SILVIPASTURE

The impact of grazing on plant composition and dominance of natural gr assland, as well as plant population of established silvipasture, were studied at Jhansi from October 1991 to June 1994. There was no harmfu l effect an the plant composition and dominance of the perennial grass es in natural grassland due to round the pear grazing. Similarly, plan t population of Chrysopogon fulvous was also not affected due to round the year grazing by sheep and goats under silvipastoral system. Howev er, legume components drastically decreased under natural grassland, a s well as in silvipastoral system. Out of three tree species, Leucaena leucocephala survived minimum (11.5%), followed by Dichrostachys cine rea (64.0%) under grazing conditions. Thus, it carl be concluded that the legume components are affected severely by grazing in both the typ es of pasture even with optimum stocking rate of animals. In tree spec ies, L. leucocephala was also affected adversely, while perennial gras ses did not show any harmful effect of grazing.