Germplasm Collection and Dry Matter Production of Mongolian Forage Plants

Mongolian rangelands harbour 564 genera, 128 families and 2,823 species of plants (Gubanov, 1996). Approximately 600 species can be used as forage plants (Yunatov, 1968). There are 5 to 6 species of perennial forage plants that are unique to Mongolia and the country has a domestic cultivar Burgaltai of lucerne. This paper provides the results of a study on vegetative and seed yield of germplasm collected from naturally occurring forage plants during 1976-2003. To date, seeds have been collected and are involved in the experimental work from approximately 70 percent of forage plants available at the forage plant seed bank of the Animal Husbandry Research Institute where there are over 2000 samples available

Forage Monitoring Technology to Improve Risk Management Decision Making by Herders in the Gobi Region of Mongolia

In the period from 1999 to 2002, Mongolia experienced a series of droughts and severe winters that lowered livestock numbers by approximately 30% countrywide. In the Gobi region, livestock mortality reached 50% with many households losing entire herds (Siurua & Swift 2002). In March 2004, a program was initiated by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Global Livestock Collaborative Research and Support Program (GLCRSP). The goal of this program is to develop forage monitoring technologies that provide early warning of drought and winter disaster to improve livestock herder decision making in the Gobi region. The program has two major objectives: (1) to develop a regional forage monitoring system that provides near-real time spatial and temporal assessment of current and forecasted forage conditions, and (2) to develop a communication infrastructure that provides herders with data on forage conditions to assist them in making timely and specific management decisions