The Impact Of Cultivation On Above Ground Primary Production, Species Diversity And Density In The Rangelands Of Laikipia District, Kenya

Abstract

Rangelands are traditionally used for livestock and wildlife production but have increasingly been put under crop cultivation in the recent past. Though land transformation for agricultural production has historic, economic, political and social justification, recent trends and rates of conversion of native habitats to crops have been shown to be decisive factors in species extinction. The study was designed to assess the effect of continuous cultivation on primary production by comparing production from cultivated fields with that from private ranching and communal grazing areas under livestock production. Crop production of maize and beans was determined from plots cultivated for over three and ten years respectively each with three treatments: planted without manure or fertilizer (T1), planted with manure (T2) and planted with fertilizer (T3). Primary production from Private commercial ranch (PR) and Communal grazing area (CG) were determined by clipping. Above ground herbaceous primary production was higher (P