Planting pit size determines successful tree seedling establishment in arid and semi-arid region of Tanzania

Abstract

Tree cover enhancement in the agricultural lands of dryland region have been one of the most important aspect of evaluation and monitoring of plant density in Tanzania that targets in achieving global and national restoration goals. The on-farm tree establishment has gained momentum due to the numerous regulating and provisioning ecosystem services provided by the systems. This study was conducted as an on farm experiment to explore the influences of biophysical factors in adoption and performance of the tree establishment technologies in Chamwino district in Tanzania. Different planting pits sizes and mulch or manure and/or mulch were used as the treatment combinations for evaluating tree survival and growth potential. The assessment used a combination of methods including tree inventory, reflection meetings, informal discussion and semi structured interviews collected using electronic data entry tools. The results showed that Senna siamea species performed better than other species than the others in terms of survival rate which was 50%. Comparatively, Melia volkensii species performed poor with the highest mortality rate of 8. The higher performance both survival and growth potential were observed in three times planting bag (3X) pits sizes with manure and both manure and mulch treatment applied. Thus, the research confirms that improvement of the socio and biophysical environment can have positive results on tree establishment and restoration in dryland regions.