National Agricultural Research and Development Fund (NARDF)

Water is our most precious resources and there is no substitute for water. In the semi-arid region, it's importance is more understood in the context of depleting aquifer and biodiversity. The grassland diversity driven by the water is the risk when the agricultural land came into existence and human left nothing untouched. The native grasses are being invaded by imported notorious weedy perennials in the High Plains. In such case, we can only preserve the native vegetation by maintaining niche complementarity between species through avoiding monoculture and using drought tolerant legumes. Because legumes offer grasses to come together providing nitrogen to the companion grass species. Research should focus on optimizing water use to balance tradeoff between livestock production and biodiversity conservation.