Farm Forestry New ZealandModelling growth of Eucalyptus spp. on New Zealand dryland micro-sites
By Serajis Salekin, Justin Morgenroth, Euan Mason, June 2017.
Download SWP-T027 (pdf)
Executive summary
New Zealand’s planted forests are mainly established on low value land, especially land that is not useful for pastoral agriculture. Much of the low value land is found in hill country, which is characteristically heterogeneous, which results in heterogeneous production within the stand (Apiolaza et al., 2011; Millner & Kemp, 2012). The issue of heterogeneity has previously been reported for juvenile trees (Ares & Marlats, 1995; Bathgate et al., 1993; Larson et al., 2008).
Though Eucalyptus spp. play only a minor role in New Zealand forestry at present (Apiolaza et al., 2011), there is potential for them to be more widely planted if forest managers were more confident in their growth potential. This requires a better understanding of their growth and survival on a variety of sites.
The mensurational models don’t yield information about the underlying processes leading to variation in growth. However, it is evident that there are external factors which are playing a vital role in the growth of the trees at the early stages. It is necessary to identify and model those variables for precise prediction. For that, the coefficients are needed to extend linearly to find the significant factors and augment them to the final model to improve prediction and explain the variability.
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