Exploitation of Annual and Perennial Herbaceous Species for the Rehabilitation of a Sand Quarry in a Mediterranean Environment

Abstract

Commercial seeds are widely used for re‐vegetation interventions in Mediterranean areas. These seeds mostly consist of species and varieties of non‐local provenance. The current practice relies mainly on forage or turf and fast growing species, even if it is often inefficient. Twenty‐two local populations or commercial varieties of annual and perennial species belonging to the botanical families Leguminosae, Graminaceae and Compositae were evaluated in a 4‐year field experiment in order to investigate their potential in terms of establishment and persistence in the re‐vegetation of an inactive sand quarry. Native species showed better performances than commercial varieties and encouraged further actions for the valorisation of local plant biodiversity. Among legumes, the best adapted species was the perennial Lotus cytisoides that showed high persistence in combination with other positive traits. A few annual species, that is, Melilotus indica, Trifolium subterraneum and Ornithopus sativus performed well and persisted until the end of the experiment. Among perennial grasses, Cynodon dactylon survived to drought and low soil nutrients. Both native annual grasses Lolium rigidum and Aegilops geniculata performed very well during the first 2 years of experiments. Both forbs, the perennial Cichorium intybus and the annual Chrysanthemum coronarium did not guarantee a satisfactory persistence. Some native species were evidenced, which may play an important role in the re‐vegetation of sand quarries and have good potential to be further characterized before introduction in the seed market. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Farming Systems in Two Less Favoured Areas in Portugal: Their Development From 1989 to 2009 and the Implications for Sustainable Land Management

“…The need to redirect subsidies to the support of sensible management alternatives that might render these systems more sustainable in the future is also a recurrent recommendation (Beaufoy et al, 1994;Caballero et al, 2007). A good example is the improvement of self-sown legume-based pastures, which constitutes a long-term lowering cost strategy (Porqueddu, 2007) and an opportunity for the rehabilitation of degraded land (Porqueddu et al, 2013). This recommendation could be of use for farm types where pasture efficiency was not at its best, for example, in the case of extensive sheep farmers in Centro (C3) and full-time cattle farmers in Alentejo (A3).…”

Selection of suitable species as a key factor for vegetation restoration of degraded areas in an open‐pit manganese‐ore mine in Southern China using multivariate‐analysis methods

“…Analytic‐hierarchy processes have been widely used to select species in the process of postmining vegetation restoration (Soltanmohammadi, Osanloo, & Aghajani, ; Talema et al, ). Native species have proven to be more suitable than non‐native species for vegetation restoration (Conrad & Tischew, ; Porqueddu et al, ). Yuan et al () found that monoculture forests of Robinia pseudoacacia Linn.…”

Modelling the Spatial Expansion of Green Manure Considering Land Productivity and Implementing Strategies

“…In China, there will be a trend to integrate green manure in agricultural system as an alternative strategy for lowering chemical fertilizer usage and restoring a deteriorated field environment. Current research focuses on improving soil physical and biochemical properties [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], contaminated soil rehabilitation [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], improving crop yield [13,[23][24][25][26], development of sustainable agricultural system [27][28][29][30][31][32] at the micro scale. However, developing green manure at a regional scale is especially affected by both human interventions and the natural soil properties.…”