Box 2. Soil-saving native grasses

摘要

On one of the sites that was fenced and regenerated in the 1970s, there was excellent plant cover and, particularly where the tuft-type native grass Vetiver grew, the area appeared very stable (Fig. 4). After some exploratory digging, I found that the species had a very fibrous root system that extended about 1.5-m deep into the soil, making it ideal for bank stabilization.rnThis prompted me to trial propagation of the grass for use on banks in the river system in conjunction with other grass and tree species, a process that has resulted in a lot of success over many of my sites. My method is to dig out a part of a clump, bring it home and divide it up into tillers, laying each individual tiller in sand, in an open-air farm nursery. When these have rooted, each little plant is put into tubes for about 6 months until they are big enough to be planted out.