Prickly Shrubby Burnet (Sarcopoterium spinosum (L.) Spach) Controlling in Shrubland Ecosystems of Gökçeada

Located in the western point of Turkey, forests and shrublands are important for the island of Gökçeada. Almost all of the pasture surfaces are covered mainly with Sarcopoterium spinosum L., a common weed which has intensive thorns to makes it harder to be consumed even for the local sheeps and goats of Gökçeada; being main cause of inefficiency for the island pastures. In order to improve these pastures, ripping, burning and cutting applications are utilized separately as in plot order, in the shrublands of Kaleköy and Yıldız cove to control Sarcopoterium spinosum L. at 23–24 October 2010. Natural meadow is considered as the control plot and compared with the trials. In May 2012, samples are examined and total dry matter weight of pasture along with length, diameter, coverage and total volume of Sarcopoterium spinosum L. are calculated. Bushes of Sarcopoterium spinosum L. in natural pasture had 899.3 g/m2 (99.7%) total dry matter while grassy species had only 2.5 g/m2 (0.3%). After weed management applications, final total dry matter weight of Sarcopoterium spinosum L. were 158.9 g/m2, 118.9 g/m2 and 84.5 g/m2, while the total weight of grassy species were 31.3 g/m2, 18.5 g/m2 and 39.6 g/m2 for cutting, ripping and burning plots, respectively. These results show that management applications reduced total dry matter by 78.9–86.2% and total Sarcopoterium spinosum L. weight by 82.3–90.6%. Meanwhile, grassy species are improved by 7.5–16.0 times according to their previous measurements. Cutting, ripping and burning of pastures reduced Sarcopoterium spinosum L. length by 50%, diameter by 67%, coverage by 89% and total volume by 95% altogether; thus observations gathered from burning plots indicated even more reduction. Pastures and meadows that highly covered by Sarcopoterium spinosum L. needs to be managed to improve availability for the animals. Management could be held by cutting, ripping and burning applications or by chemical management. For the stability of this management, it is advised to conduct a grazing system in the pasture and remove the goats from the ecosystem.