Fertility responses of a native grass: technology supporting native plant production for restoration in Brazil

Abstract

The UN “Decade on ecosystem restoration” demands urgent actions to bring back native ecosystems from degraded lands. Tree seedlings are widely available for restoration plantings. However, the lack of other life forms available in commercial nurseries constraints grassy biomes restoration. The use of fertilizers is widely common to grow tree seedlings in nurseries and the current technology could be useful to grow native grasses in nurseries and turn the planting technique feasible to restore grassy biomes, such as the Cerrado in Brazil. In this study, we examined the growth and nutritional responses to nutrient availability of the native grassSchizachyrium sanguineumproduced in nursery. We produced seedlings by germinated seeds ofS. sanguineumon seedbeds containing sand and, after emergence, transferring the plants to 290‐cm3plastic tubes containing commercial substrate (CS) added with 0, 1, 3, 5, or 7 g/L of controlled‐release fertilizer (CRF, NPK 15‐09‐12) and non‐fertilized native soil (NS). After 90 days, we found high seedling survival (>98%) in all trials. In spite of lower nutrient availability, the NS promoted higher seedling tillering and relative height and biomass growths than the non‐fertilized CS. However, in general, seedlings showed increased growth, and shoot P and K concentrations with an increase in CRF rates, up to approximately 5 g/L. In addition, higher CRF rates allowed faster grow ofS. sanguineumseedlings. Ultimately, we found thatS. sanguineumresponds positively to fertilization, despite being native from nutrient‐poor soil of Cerrado.