Assisted natural regeneration as affected by lodging and slashing vegetation in a grassland in the Philippines

Abstract

This study was primarily conducted to determine the effectiveness of Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) as a rehabilitation technique for degraded grasslands in the Philippines. Specifically, it aimed to (1) determine the rate of growth of natural regeneration resulting from ANR treatments, and; (2) assess the species diversity over time. The experiment was carried out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. Three ANR treatments, namely lodging, slashing every month, and slashing every other month, were tested against a control where no ANR treatments were undertaken. The ANR treatments did not produce any significant effect on recruitment (number of species and number of regenerations by species), and height growth of regenerations during the first year of observation. However, survival of the existing regenerations in the area was significantly affected by the ANR treatments. At the end of the second year, the regenerations’ height increments were significantly influenced by the ANR treatments while the population and number of species was not. Monthly slashing of the host vegetation yielded the tallest regenerations. The least mortality of regenerations was observed in the lodging and slashing every other month treatments. While there were no significant differences among the treatments in terms of the number of regenerations, the highest number of regernations occurred in plots where lodging was undertaken.