MEANS OF EXPRESSING AND REGULATING DENSITY IN FOREST STANDS

Summary A brief review is first given of a few practical ways of regulating and expressing stand density. An illustration is then given of the application in even-aged stands of Pinus taeda in the native habitat of this species of a regression equation in which stocking is expressed in terms of number of trees per unit of area and total basal area. Not only does the equation permit the expression of the density of anyone plot as a percentage of the average stocking of a number of sample areas, but it enables the research worker to determine the ground area occupied by a tree of given size in the overstory or in the understory. Graphs are presented which illustrate the application of the tree-area equation, as this “stocking norm” is called.