A method for determining knotty core sizes of standing Pinus patula trees based on tree ring sampling

摘要

The objectives of this study were to develop and assess a method of using tree ring measurements in standing pruned Pinus patula trees for modelling the knotty core of the pruned section of a tree and to assess variability in knotty core diameters in the tree stem. A total of 170 trees from 17 compartments on a wide variety of growth sites from the Mpumalanga escarpment in South Africa were selected and destructively sampled. We show that ring width measurements at breast height can be used to predict growth in the upper pruned section which in turn can be used to reconstruct the internal knotty core through the full pruned section of the log.