Study on Slash Pine (Pinus elliottii) as a Short Rotation Forestry in the North of Iran

Abstract

Forests of Iran located on the Southern border of the Caspian Sea cover 1.9 million hectares. The Caspian forests are divided into four separate forestry areas. One of these being Guilan influx area with total area of 565000 hectares. About 30 to 40 percent of Guilan province forests are suitable to short rotation forestry for afforestation. Slash pine (Pinus elliottii) is one of the main exotic species planted in the Guilan province. The objectives of this research were to estimate: stand parameters, form factors and a provisional volume table of Slash pine planted forest stands. A total of 142 individual trees were randomly sampled. Individual tree variables such as: dbh, height, volume, and form factors (f13, fm, f0.1 and fh) were measured and analyzed. The site index quality of study area, were broadly compared with stands of site index in the southeast USA. The results were shown that the site index quality at the study area in the north of Iran in agreement and parallel with stands of site index is 21m (63 Ft.) in the southeast USA. Therefore, operation of Slash pine is satisfied as short rotation forestry in the Guilan province of Iran.

Keywords

• Caspian forests
• form factors
• Iran
• Slash pine
• short rotation
• volume table
• Pinus elliottii