Comparison of grazed and non-grazed herbage yield, pastures quality in terms of plant species and composition in Hal village of Elazıg province

This study was carried out in 2014-2015 in order to compare the two different areas non-grazed and grazed pastures in the Hal village, Elazig center, in terms of their herbage yield and quality with plant species and compositions In the study, 70 genera and 90 plant taxa belonging to a total of 25 plant families were identified in two pasture fields. It has been determined that 43 of these taxa were annual-invasive plants, one of the taxa was belong to an annual replicative, one taxa was biennial-invasive and biennial-perennial-invasive, 33 of them were perennial-invasive plants, 6 of them were perennial-diminishing plants and 5 of them were belong to perennial-invasive plants. According to results of two years of research, plant-covered area was obtained 61.95% of the non-grazed area and 65.45% of the grazed area. In botanical composition according to covering area, it was identified as, in non-grazed areas, the proportion of graminaes was 46.67%, the proportion of legumes was 28.54% and the percentage of plants from other families was 24.80% while, in the grazed area, the proportion of graminaes was 56.41%, the proportion of legumes was 24.58% and the proportion of plants from other families was 19.02%. The average height of plants in the pasture area was 10.38 cm, however in non-grazed area was 8.28 cm. It was obtained that the herbage yield in the pastures area was 413.50 kg/ 1000 m2, in the non-grazed area was 294.35 kg 1000 m2. According to dry weight,, the botanical composition of ratio of plants family belong to the graminaes, leguminous plants and the other families were respectively 49.90%, 37.11%, 13.01% for non-grazed pastures, 47.79%, 25.84%, 26.37% in the grazed area. The grazed capacity was calculated as 37.85 BBHB for non-grazed area and 28.05 BBHB for the grazed area. According to the two year average results, the ratios of crude protein content, ADF, NDF, DDM, DMI, RFV, P, Ca, Mg and K in dry matter were %15.42, %34.00, %49.45, %62.42, %2.48, 120.98, %0.27, %1.32, %0.30 and % 1.70 respectively in the non-grazed area, while, in the grazed area, they were determined as 15.36%, 32.23%, 48.86%, 63.79%, 2.53%, 126.13%, 0.28%, 1.23%, 0.31% and 1.57%. The most common species in terms of frequency values in non-grazed and grazed areas were Poa bulbosa (78.0%), Aegilops neglecta (75.0%), Avena sterilis (32.5%), Salvia multicaulis (32.5%) and Chrysopogon gyllus (22.5%) while the most common species in terms of frequency values were Poa bulbosa (14.12%), Aegilops neglecta (13.64%), Chrysopogon gyllus (2.35%), Salvia multicaulis (1.91%) and Avena sterilis (1.66%). Keywords: Non-Grazed, Grazed, Pastures, Plant Species, Botanical Composition,Herbage Yield, Herbage Quality