Development of a stem taper equation and modelling the effect of stand density on taper for Chinese fir plantations in Southern China.

ABSTRACT: Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) is the most important commercial tree species in southern China. The objective of this study was to develop a variable taper equation for Chinese fir, and to quantify the effects of stand planting density on stem taper in Chinese fir. Five equations were fitted or evaluated using the diameter-height data from 293 Chinese fir trees sampled from stands with four different densities in Fenyi County, Jiangxi Province, in southern China. A total of 183 trees were randomly selected for the model development, with the remaining 110 trees used for model evaluation. The results show that the Kozak's, Sharma/Oderwald, Sharma/Zhang and modified Brink's equations are superior to the Pain/Boyer equation in terms of the fitting and validation statistics, and the mod

SUBMITTER: Duan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4860307 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature