Journal of Rangeland

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Forage production is influenced by rainfall fluctuation, and it determines the grazing capacity of rangelands. This study aimed to investigate the performance of the statistical model for estimating long- term production and to find the relation between the dominant species production with climate variables (e.g. rainfall, temperature, humidity, real evapotranspiration, etc.) in a period of 2003 to 2013 in Shirkouh watershed-Yazd province. The water and climate balance model (FAO56 method that was run by Cropwat software 8), and simple and multiple regression model were used to model forage production. Results indicated that evapotranspiration is the best predictive variable for estimating forage production (Y=1.69ET_act+257.91). Average estimated forage production of the studied site was 369/90 kg/hec. Actual evapotranspiration is an appropriate index for water use efficiency. This study highlights the importance of actual evapotranspiration for estimating long-term forage production with different models, hence this index can be considered as a replacement for current short-term methods, and has a high capability for the insurance industry.
 

Keywords: Actual evaporation and transpiration, climatic indicator, FAO method, long-term production.

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