2.2.2.6. Range utilization. The utilization of herbaceous plants in
the grazing areas was determined using qualitative techniques
(Holechek et al., 2004), with lower scores indicating a more
beneficial situation. According to Holechek et al. (2004), ‘heavy
utilization’ is a degree of herbage utilization that does not
permit desirable forage species to maintain themselves while
‘light grazing’ is a degree of herbage utilization that allows
palatable species to maximize their herbage-producing ability.
Sampling was done during the rainy season, which is assumed to
minimize the temporal effects, where all the study sites have left
ungrazed for one year. The diversity of species, and weight or
biomass yield was quantifiable attributes of vegetation utilization
in the rangeland sites. Range utilization scores were
assigned according to categories of unused/ungrazed (0e5%),
lightly used (6e40%), moderately used (41e60%), heavily used
(61e81%), or severely used (82e100%) based on visual
appearance.