Crown Openness and Regeneration Status in Pine Forest

Abstract

Silviculture is the art and science to control the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests. Every silviculture system involves harvesting of over storey trees either singly or in groups. This creates the gap on forest canopy which represent opportunities for forest regeneration. In this research tries to study about the relation between two variables crown openness as an independent variable and regeneration as dependent variable. Research site Chappani Gadhidanda community forest, Bhulmu-4 was selected for the research purpose. 4 treatment plots including 2 selections, 1 negative thinning and 1 shelterwood with 1 control plot that is 5 research plots in total were already constructed and time was enough for regeneration to come after tree harvesting. Two species was dominant in upper canopy that is Pinus patula & Pinus wallichiana. Total 30 sampling points was constructed of 1m2 in each research plot for regeneration and crown openness data collection. Sampling plots was constructed on the basis of systematic random sampling method which was within each 10m×10m crossing grid of research plot on the SE direction. The result showed that there is obvious relation between crown openness and regeneration because there was significantly higher number of regenerations in the plots with more crown openness and vice versa and also the correlation between two variables was found to be 0.9144. At 5% level of significance there was significant difference in crown openness within research plots and same was the case for regeneration number except plots 2&5 and 1&2 was not significantly different. This research illustrates the effect of crown openness and regeneration status of pine forest which will be important tool on Nepalese context and worldwide for scientific society and decision makers who are concerned in silviculture science.