The importance of the transformed vegetal blankets for cattle sustainability in the Northeast of Cesar, Colombia

Abstract

The northeast region of Cesar department has been affected in recent decades by the drastic effects of global warming and climate change. According to this, the economic activities and the quality of life of the inhabitants of this zone are in high risk due to the fact that the seasons of drought are highly accentuated, which has had a negative effect on the productivity and the sustenance of the cattle activity. The purpose of this research was to determine the structure of the vegetation that forms the transformed landscape units of the municipality of Guacochito Cesar, with the purpose of finding woody species with nutritional potential that could be used as food supplement for the sustenance of livestock in dry seasons. The sampling unit corresponded to 0,1 ha distributed in 10 plots (transects) of 50 m long by 2 m wide, covering the internal variability of the inventoried area, as developed in VILLAREAL (2014). Determinant results were obtained to establish that the transformed vegetal blankets adjacent to the district of Guacochito Cesar has a great potential, because in these units woody species with important forage characteristics such as Prosopis juliflora and Samanea saman are grown, which showed significant indices of value of importnace (IVI), which, joined to their agroecosystemic properties, allows to think about the planning of a program of rational use of these organisms in order to nutritionally supplement cattle and minor species in times of prolonged drought.

Keywords

• Cambio climático
• calentamiento global
• Guacochito Cesar
• unidad paisajística
• inventario botánico
• especies forrajeras.