Effects of reseeding and sward ripping on vegetation restoration in degraded subalpine meadow

A split plot design has been carried out to study the effects of reseeding and sward ripping in the fence on vegetation height, total coverage, aboveground biomass and species diversity index summation of functional groups since June 2011 in a reseeding and sward ripping experiment on degraded subalpine meadow in Lintan County of Gannan City, Gansu Province. The results showed that pasture coverage, aboveground biomass and species diversity index of functional groups, treated by sward ripping, increased with reseed amount, while vegetation height increased with reseed amount at first, and then decreased. There has been a significant interaction between reseeding and sward ripping (P0.01), reseeding 3 combining with sward ripping has a positive effect on aboveground biomass of pasture, coverage, species diversity index of functional groups, the maximum reaching 201.5 gm-2, 88.2% and 1.203 respectively. The vegetation height tested by reseeding 1 and sward ripping reached 11.7 cm. On the basis of the average value of different reseeding amount, the vegetation height, coverage, aboveground biomass and species diversity index of functional groups of sward ripping were significantly higher than the control one (without sward ripping). In conclusion, correlation degree analysis indicated that treatment reseeding 2 with sward ripping was the best choice considering of height, total coverage, aboveground biomass and species diversity index of functional groups.