A comparison of five methods for assessing veld condition in the Natal Midlands.

Abstract

Reports the results of a study conducted to assess the precision with which five selected veld condition assessment methods are able to estimate the degree ofchange of a range site in relation to some agreed standard of excellence; Site rankings obtained from five methods of scoring veld condition in the Highland Sourveld and the moist tall grassveld of the Natal Midlands were correlated with rankings from methods of multivariate analysis. With few exceptions, all methods gave rankings which were strongly correlated with ranking from detrended correspondence analysis, thus indicating that they all provide a practical means of indexing the relative veld condition of sites with reasonable precision. The weighted quantitative climax and key species methods were superior to the other three methods in this respect. They key species method has the advantage of simplicity and speed, and should stimulate farmers to undertake routine monitoring of their veld in these two regions.Keywords: Benchmark method; botany; detrended correspondence analysis; grassveld; Grazing capacity; highland sourveld; key species; Key species method; KwaZulu/Natal Midlands; monitoring; multivariate analysis; Multivariate ordination; natal; natal midlands; Palatability method; precision; Productivity method; Site rankings; south africa; Veld condition assessments; Veld Condition Index; Veld conditions; Weighted qualitative climax methodJournal of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa