ICFRE - Himalayan Forest Research Institute

Afforestation of Cold Deserts

• Survey of cold desert areas carried out to identify, indigenous species and species groups for taking up planting trials with these species in the cold desert areas.

• Survey of Juniper bearing areas in Himachal Pradesh carried out to assess its conservation status.

• Nursery techniques or some indigenous species suitable for cold desert areas including Quercus ilex, Hippophae rhamnoides and Fraxinus xanthoxyloides standardised.

• Floristic survey of Cold Deserts of HP and J&K carried out and collected unique flora from the cold deserts.

Hippophae rhamnoides	Cold Desert - A Typical Village	Cold Desert - A View	Juniperus spp.

• Standardization of Nursery techniques of Five Prominent Indigenous species of cold deserts revealed that in Case of Eleagnus angustifolia the new growing shoots of 20 to 30 cm length collected from the healthy mature plants during April treated with 5000 ppm to 6000 ppm concentrations of IBA using quick dip method in soil and sand medium gave more than 90% rooting in Poly- house. Whereas 6000 ppm to 7000 ppm concentrations in open nursery conditions in soil medium gave more than 70% rooting. After rooting, all the plants kept in beds in Open nursery during next growing season for hardening.

	Management of Alpine Pastures Ecological studies including determination of species composition, plant biomass and net primary production in selected alpine pasture carried out.
Alpine Studies

• Studies on Hemis High Altitude National Park of Ladakh district of the state of J&K: This study resulted in enumeration of 458 taxa belonging to 215 genera spread over 59 families of Gymnosperms and Angiosperms. An analysis of this list shows that family Asteraceae with 74 taxa belonging to 29 genera is the most dominant family of flowering plants in the study area. The analysis of the growth forms of the species reveals that the flora is predominantly herbaceous with herbs forming 92.36 % (423 taxa) of the total flora, followed by 5.24 % shrubs (24 taxa) and 2.40 % trees (11 taxa). The dominant family here is Asteraceae, with 29 genera and 74 species, amounting to 16.2% of the flora of the PA; which is in agreement with the flora across the North West Himalaya.