Grow 10 types of trees to improve forest fodder, end crop raid
COIMBATORE: A group of experts from The Forest College and Research Institute at Mettupalayam, attached to TNAU, has recommended to the Coimbatore forest division officials to plant saplings of 10 varieties of trees and six types of grass to increase the availability of fodder for elephants in Sirumugai and Mettupalayam forests.
The recommendation was made by a seven-member team, headed by MP Divya, Professor and Head of Department of Forest Products and wildlife, after a year-long study conducted on the instructions from the Tamil Nadu forest department to mitigate human-elephant conflict in the Western Ghats.
Elephants move out of their habitat due to many reasons including fodder shortage. The change in cropping patterns, like the cultivation of bananas and corn etc, especially in the boundaries of Sirumugai and Mettupalayam forests, also force elephants out of their habitat, resulting in human-animal conflict.
The team checked the availability of native fodder, its nutrient status and suitable mass multiplication technology for native grass fodder and tree fodder.
The report was submitted to S Ramasubramanian Conservator of forest and DFO TK Ashok Kumar last week. “Based on the signs of elephant feeding, out of 30 grass fodder and 25 tree fodder found inside the forests, six trees were highly nutritive and ten tree fodder rich in nutrients like crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, acid detergent fibre, and neutral detergent fibre. By planting such fodder grasses and tree fodder it’s possible to curtail the incidence of elephants coming out of forest areas as that would meet their food requirements within the forests,” said Divya
Wild elephants use Sirumugai and Mettupalayam forests, which is the connecting point to Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) and Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), annually. Most of the elephants depend upon the Pethikuttai surroundings in Sirumugai as there is availability of water in the form of Bhavani backwaters along with grasses and tree fodder, etc.
However, the animals are facing a shortage of food as a large number of elephants, spotted deer, sambar deer, gaur and other herbivores use the same landscape. “For mass multiplication of grass fodder, the slips treated with IBA at 300 ppm, showed superior performance in terms of tiller production, survival percentage and biomass yield. With respect to mass multiplication of tree fodder, seed propagation was found to be better for Acacia nilotica, Acacia leucophloea etc,” said K Bharanidharan, associate professor of the college.
Grass species
- Bermuda grass (Cynodondactylon),
- Angelton bluestem (Dichanthiumaristatum),
- Mopane grass (Enteropogonmonostacyos),
- Black Speargrass (Heteropogoncontortus),
- Burmann’s basketgrass (Oplismenusburmannii)
- Thatching grass(Themedatriandra)
Tree saplings
- Acacia nilotica
- Acacia leucophloea
- Acacia planifrons
- Bitter albizia (Albiziaamara)
- Bamboo (Bambusabambos)
- Kapok (Ceibapendantra)
- Banyan (Ficusbenghalensis)
- Sacred fig (Ficusreligiosa)
- Cluster fig (Ficusracemosa)
- Anjan(Hardwickiabinata)
Fodder shortage cause of conflict
Elephants move out of their habitat due to many reasons including fodder shortage and change in cropping pattern like cultivation of banana and corn among others