Alpine meadow degradation is a serious challenge for animal husbandry and ecosystem safety in the Qilian Mountain area, northwest China. Although some restoration methods have been used, fertilization practices still rely heavily on chemical fertilizers. As a type of green and effective fertilizer, microbial fertilizer was put into a degraded alpine meadow in this study, and six fertilization treatments, including no fertilization (CK), diammonium phosphate (600 kg∙ha−1) (DP), microbial fertilizer (75 kg·ha−1) (MF), diammonium phosphate (600 kg∙ha−1) with microbial fertilizer (75 kg·ha−1) (DPMF1), diammonium phosphate (450 kg∙ha−1) with microbial fertilizer (75 kg·ha−1) (DPMF2), and diammonium phosphate (300 kg∙ha−1) with microbial fertilizer (75 kg·ha−1) (DPMF3), were conducted on a moderately degraded alpine meadow using field plot experimental methods to evaluate the effects of reduced chemical fertilizer combined with microbial fertilizer on the vegetation and soil characteristics of degraded alpine meadow in 2023 and 2024. The results indicated that DP showed the highest biomass production in the two study years, but there was no significant difference between DPMF2 and DP in 2024. The dominance of originally fine forage Kobresia humilis and Medicago ruthenica showed the highest values for the DPMF3 treatment in 2023 and for the DPMF2 treatment in 2024. The vegetation Shannon–Wiener diversity and richness indices of DPMF1, DPMF2 and DPMF3 were significantly higher than those of CK. However, community diversity decreased in the second year of fertilization. DPMF2 treatment significantly increased the contents of soil organic matter, available nitrogen and available phosphorus in 2024. Grey correlation analysis indicated that 450 kg·ha−1 of diammonium phosphate combined with 75 kg·ha−1 of microbial fertilizer was the most suitable regime for moderately degraded alpine meadow restoration in the study area.
Li et al. (Fri,) studied this question.