A cura della Società Italiana di Agronomia col Contributo finanziario del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

Summary IMPROVEMENT TECHNIQUES AND EROSION OF HILLSIDE PASTURELANDS. Aim of the trial was the establishment of soil losses after fires and improvement techniques application on hillside pasturelands. The experiment was carri ed out on granitic soils with an average slope of 22.8%. Erosion was studi ed on Wischmeier plots. Treatments were as follows: continuously tilled, cash crop, natural pastureland, shrub-cleared pasture, pasture cleared by fire, pasture infested by Cistus monspeliensis L. Recorded overland flow rate never exceeded 3%. More appreciable differences have been recorded among turbidity values which were particularly affected by different soil tillages (0.388 g l-l recorded from the runoff· of the cash crop treatment and 0.093 g l-l from the runoff of the treatment covered by Cistus monspeliensis L.). As far as the trial environment is concerned, erosion values are to be considered very scarce. Soil loss values ranged from 0.014 t ha-l yeacl in the treatment where fire was applied to 0.049 t ha-l year-l in the continuously tilled treatment.