Effects of Converting Grassland to Rainfed Areas on Soil Nutrients and Plant Growth

Land use change (LUC) affects the plant and soil functional properties and influences soil nutrients efficiency. This research was carried out to examine the effect of grassland conversion to dry farming on the efficiency of bio-mineral nutrients in semi-arid loamy soils of northwestern Iran. Materials & methods: Animal manure (AM: 100 and 200 g. Kg-1), beneficial micro-organisms (UMOs: 1 and 2%), superabsorbent polymers (SAP: 10 and 30 g. Kg-1), and potassium nanosilicate (PNS: 500 and 1000 mg. Kg-1) were used for grass Festuca ovina L. cultivated in grassland and dry farming soil at a completely randomized factorial design. Findings: Based on the results, LUC strongly affected the efficiency of soil nutrients, especially PNS (P ≤0.01), where the highest and lowest effects of different nutrients were observed under dry farming and grassland, respectively. A maximum difference of 24.0%, 45.0%, and 24.0% was observed in plant biomass, chlorophyll, moisture content, respectively, using 200 g. Kg-1 AM and 30 g. Kg-1 SAP in the soil of grassland and dry farming. Also, a maximum difference of 71.0% and 67.0% occurred at soil phosphorus and organic matter, respectively, between grassland and dry farming. Depending on the type and amount of fertilizer, converting the grasslands to rainfed areas significantly influences plant performance and soil improvement. Overall, grasslands show a better performance due to the undisturbed soil than rainfed areas under any rehabilitation program. Copyright© 2021, the Authors | Publishing Rights, ASPI. This open-access article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License which permits Share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and Adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) under the Attribution-NonCommercial terms.