Inventorying plant biodiversity in homegardens: A case study in Barak Valley, Assam, North East India

Homegardens are traditional agroforestry systems with complex structure and multiple functions. To understand the system, the socio-economic and biophysical aspects of homegardens in Dorgakona village, Barak Valley, North East India were studied. Since homegardens are also important sites for in situ on-farm conservation, the role of the rural people in the management and preservation of biodiversity in their traditional homegardening systems was examined. The homegarden size falls within the range of 0.02–1.20 ha with an average of 0.30 ha. The total number of species encountered in the homegardens was 122, with fruits as the dominant use-component. The homegardens are the sites of conservation of a large diversity of plants both wild and domesticated, because of their uses to the households. Thus the homegardens were found to be complex systems with plant diversity conserved through their use.