| dc.description.abstract | Land degradation is a major problem in the semi-arid environments of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Fighting land degradation is essential to ensure the sustainable and long-term productivity of the
habited semiarid lands. In Kenya, grass reseeding technology has been used to combat land
degradation. However, despite the use of locally adapted perennial grass species namely
Cenchrus ciliaris (African foxtail grass), Eragrostis superba (Maasai love grass) and Enteropogon
macrostachyus (Bush rye) failure still abound. Therefore, more land is still being degraded. The
aim of this study was to determine the main factors which contribute to failures in rehabilitating
denuded patches in semi-arid lands of Kenya. A questionnaire was administered to capture
farmer perceptions on failures on rangeland rehabilitation using grass reseeding technology.
Rainfall data was collected during the study period. Moreover, rehabilitation trials using the
three grasses were done under natural rainfall. Results from this study show that climatic factors
mainly low amounts of rainfall to be the main contributor to rehabilitation failures. 92% of the
respondents asserted that reseeding fails because of low rainfall amounts received in the area.
The study area received a total of 324 mm of rainfall which was low compared to the average
annual mean of 600mm. Reseeded trial plots also failed to establish due to the low amounts of
rainfall received. This showed how low rainfall is unreliable for reseeding. Other factors namely
destruction by the grazing animals, pests and rodents, flush floods, poor sowing time, poor seed
quality, lack of enough seed and weeds also contribute to rehabilitation failures in semi-arid
lands of Kenya. | en_US |
