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The experiment aims to study the growth performance, slaughter performance, organ development, and economic benefits of winter and spring lambs of grassland Tibetan sheep. A total of 90 basic ewes were selected for grazing management in the same group, and three rams were used for natural mating. 30 winter lambs and 30 spring lambs with similar weight and healthy body condition were selected according to the time of birth, with three replicates in each group and 10 lambs in each replicates. The two groups were divided into groups for rotational grazing management. After being returned to the herd, 10 lambs were selected from each group for supplementary feeding. At the end of the trial, 10 lambs were slaughtered from each group. The results showed that there was a significant difference in birth weight between the two groups at two months, four months, six months, eight months, and nine months of age (P<0.01); There were significant differences in body height and length at two months, body length at four months, chest circumference at six months, and body height at nine months between the two groups (P<0.05). There were extremely significant differences in body height and length at four months, body height and length at six months, body height and length at eight months, body length and chest circumference at eight months, and body length and chest circumference at nine months (P<0.01), while there was no significant difference in tube circumference at two months, four months, six months, eight months, and nine months (P>0.05); the difference in live weight, carcass weight, slaughter rate, and eye muscle area between the two groups was extremely significant (P<0.01), while the difference in grade rule (GR) value was not significant (P>0.05); there were significant differences (P<0.05) between the two groups in heart weight, liver weight, kidney weight, rumen weight, reticulum weight, abomasum weight, heart index, fur index, proportion of rumen to regurgitation, and proportion of reticulum to regurgitation. There were significant differences (P<0.01) between the two groups in spleen index, liver index, head index, hoof index, tumor stomach index, reticulum index, omasum index, and abomasum index. There were also significant differences (P<0.01) between the two groups in spleen weight, lung weight, head weight, hoof weight, fur weight There was no significant difference in the weight of the omasum, lung index, kidney index, and the proportion of the omasum to the complex stomach, as well as the proportion of the abomasum to the complex stomach (P>0.05); The net profit of each sheep in the winter lamb group increased by 29.61% compared to the spring lamb group. In summary, it can be seen that the growth performance, slaughter performance, organ development, and economic benefits of winter lambs are higher than those of spring lambs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Arid Land Geography is the property of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology & Geography and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology / Yingyong Shengtai Xuebao is the property of Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Water Use Efficiency (WUE) refers to the ratio of water used in plant metabolism over water lost in evapotranspiration, indicating carbon-water coupling in terrestrial ecosystem and its response to global change. It is of great significance to clarify the long-term variation characteristics and influencing factors of WUE for the study of carbon and water cycles and the rational utilization of water resources. This study aims to estimate the vegetation WUE of a research site, particularly on the annual and interannual variation characteristics of WUE, and to establish the response relationship between WUE and key meteorological factors. The data used in this paper mainly include the flux and meteorological information from eight sites in China from January 2003 to December 2010. Unified quality control and interpolation methods were then used to pre-process the flux data. The daily flux and meteorological data were combined into 8-day data sets in each site. Pearson coefficient was used to analyze the correlation between vegetation WUE and Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), ET, average temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity factors. The characteristics and influencing factors of WUE were analyzed and compared in different ecosystem. The results showed that: 1)WUE fluctuated greatly in the whole year without obvious regularity in Qianyanzhou, Xishuangbanna and Dinghushan sites which locate in the tropical monsoon climate region, while WUE showed obvious seasonal variation characteristics in the other five sites, all of which increased significantly from April to July, and reached the maximum during the peak period (July to August), and then WUE decreased gradually from August to October. From November to February of the following year, WUE reached zero. 2) From 2003 to 2010, the annual WUE of alpine meadow (Damxung) was the lowest (0.18 g/kg), whereas, that of tropical rainforest (Xishuangbanna) was the highest (4.20 g/kg). The WUE increased annually in the grassland (Inner Mongolia), broad-leaved evergreen forest (Dinghu Mountain), farmland (Yucheng), alpine meadow (Damxung), and alpine meadow (Haibei), whereas, the decreasing trend occurred in the coniferous forest (Qianyanzhou), tropical rainforest (Xishuangbanna), deciduous broad-leaved and coniferous mixed forests (Changbai Mountain). 3) In the 8-day time scale, there was positively correlation between temperature and WUE in alpine meadow, farmland and grassland ecosystem, whereas there was the negatively correlation between temperature and WUE in forest ecosystem. And the negative correlation between WUE and temperature in coniferous forest ecosystem (R=-0.607, P<0.01) was higher than that in evergreen broad-leaved forest and coniferous broad-leaved mixed forest ecosystem. Compared with forest and farmland ecosystem, WUE in alpine meadow and grassland ecosystem had a higher correlation with relative humidity and precipitation; 4) In different ecosystem, the various approaches were proposed to enhance WUE of terrestrial ecosystem for the sustainable development of agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry. Soil management regulation and canopy pruning can improve water use efficiency in the case of forest ecosystem. In farmland ecosystem, water use efficiency can be elevated from irrigation mode and crop breeding. In alpine meadow and grassland ecosystem, man-made grass, rest grazing and area rotation grazing can be used to enhance grassland carbon sink, further to improve water use efficiency. The findings can provide promising potentials to alleviate water shortage against the background of global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Drainage & Irrigation Machinery Engineering / Paiguan Jixie Gongcheng Xuebao is the property of Editorial Department of Drainage & Irrigation Machinery Engineering and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Overgrazing is an important reason for grassland ecological destruction in Qilian Mountains. In order to resumes and protects grassland ecosystem and constructs ecological animal husbandry in the northern slope of Qilian Mountains. In this paper, we selected the northern slope of Qilian Mountains in Sunan County as the study area, simulated the proper stocking capacity for livestock from different precipitation scenarios in grassland and analyzed the present forage-livestock balance status based on rotational grazing theory, researched the process of pasture production and demand with the proper stocking capacity in rotational pasturing area, carried out the dynamic forage-livestock balance analysis, and compared the result with the key pasture theory method and traditional method. The result showed that the change of precipitation greatly influences the proper stocking capacity for livestock of pasturing area in the northern slope of Qilian Mountains in Sunan County, the proper stocking capacity for livestock was 1.303 million sheep unit, 1.009 million sheep unit, and 65.1 million sheep unit in high, normal, and low flow years, respectively. In analysis of the proper stocking capacity for livestock calculated by three methods in different precipitation, we found that the result calculated by the traditional grassland-livestock balance method was the largest, and the result calculated by the grassland and livestock balance method based on key pasture theory was the lowest. This is because the traditional grassland-livestock balance method does not consider the relationship between the process of grassland production and demand of livestock in pastoral areas, the traditional grassland-livestock balance method does not consider the dynamic change of livestock number in the process of grassland demand of livestock. Therefore, we proposed that the proper stocking capacity for livestock in the normal flow year was 1.009 million sheep unit as the main reference indexes of animal husbandry management in the future. There were both existence overgrazing and under load problem in pasturing area in 2015, and the proper stocking capacity for livestock in cold season meadow was obviously different in warm, it should be adjusted to the current development of animal husbandry structure and rational allocation of cold and warm season meadow in the future. The proper stocking capacity for livestock calculated by the traditional grassland-livestock balance method would deplete the available forage in cold season meadow in March, which would lead to overgrazing. The proper stocking capacity for livestock calculated by the grassland and livestock balance method based on key pasture theory can ensure the dynamic balance of the grassland resources and livestock in the whole pasture area, but it produced a lot of waste of forage in the whole pasture. By contrast the results with the other two methods, the rotational grazing theory method not only can ensure the dynamic forage-livestock balance in different rotational pastoral areas, but also can maintain the efficient utilization of forage, and it showed that the rotational grazing theory method had certain superiority in analysis of forage-livestock balance in the rotational pastoral area. The results can provide a scientific basis for the restoration and protection of grassland ecology in Qilian Mountains and the development of ecological animal husbandry in Sunan County. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Prataculturae Sinica is the property of Acta Prataculturae Sinica Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)