Estimation of above ground biomass of Pinus caribaea

Estimation of above ground biomass of Pinus caribaea
by
Upul Subasinghe and Gayani Munasinghe

Forests in Sri Lanka contribute to the mitigation of global climate change through sequestrating a net amount of carbon dioxide and also maintaining carbon stocks as forest biomass. Therefore it was decided to study the biomass and sequestrated carbon by forest plantations in Sri Lanka. For this study, the possibility of predicting the above ground tree biomass and carbon of Pinus caribaea (Morelet) was investigated using regression analysis. A 27 year old P. caribaea plantation was selected from the low country wet zone of Sri Lanka and the data were collected using 0.05 ha sample plots.Without felling the trees, core samples were extracted from the stems and biomass and carbon amounts of those samples were used to estimate the biomass and carbon of respective trees through volume measurements. Canopy biomass and carbon were estimated using samples of primary, secondary and tertiary branches. Leaves and the tertiary branches were considered together for the selected species. The total baove ground tree biomass and carbon were estimated by adding the stem and canopy values together.

It was found that, for 27 old P. caribaea, the above ground tree biomass was 368.9 kg and carbon was 215.9 kg which is 58.5% from the biomass. The amont of carbon of the primary, secondary and tertiary and leaves was 35.0 kg. The total above ground tree carbon for the 27 year old P. caribaea plantation was 103.63 MT per ha.