Abstract:
The experiment was conducted to determine the effect of fertilizer type and rate, and harvesting age on morphological characteristics, biomass yield, and chemical composition of in closed natural pasture and to assess the trend of natural pasture coverage using satellite imageries in Farta district, North West Amhara. The experiment had two sets of factors i.e. fertilizer (five levels) and harvesting age (three stages), both placed in factorial treatment arrangement and having fifteen combinations of treatments (5*3). Organic fertilizer with a rate of 4500 and 2250 kg and chemical fertilizer with a rate of 100 and 50 kg per ha were compared with non-fertilized pasture as control. While harvesting ages were 45, 75, and 105 days after fertilization of the pasture were considered for treatment combinations. The experiment lied with a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with a factorial arrangement with three replications. Data for morphology (plant height, tiller number, number, and length leaves), forage yield, and samples for chemical composition were collected from each allotted plots accordingly to the harvesting age. Forty-three years (1975-2018) of satellite images were used to capture the trend of natural pasture land use land cover change. The study revealed that fertilizer and harvesting age had significant effects (P<0.05) on major parameters of morphological characteristics, biomass yield, and chemical composition of natural pasture. The major grass species in the study pasture were Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers, Andropogon gayanus, and Cynodon dactylon while Trifolium decorum Chiova identified as a dominant legume. The effects of fertilizer and harvesting stage were significant (P<0.05) on legume to grass proportion. The mean dry matter yields of natural pasture harvested on 45, 75, and 105 days were 1.59, 2.94, and 5.69 (ton/ha) respectively which had significant difference (p<0.05) among dates. Fertilizer application at varied rates showed a