Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Evaluation of total aboveground biomass and total merchantable biomass in Missouri

Informally Refereed

Abstract

In recent years, the state of Missouri has been converting to biomass weight rather than volume as the standard measurement of wood for buying and selling sawtimber. Therefore, there is a need to identify accurate and precise methods of estimating whole tree biomass and merchantable biomass of harvested trees as well as total standing biomass of live timber for resource assessments and silvicultural planning. In this study, we compared the traditional whole tree diameter-based biomass model currently used with alternative model forms fitted to tree data collected from four southeast Missouri species. Additionally, we reassessed each nonlinear model with total tree height and crown ratio included as covariates. Finally, we assessed the best model identified from the aforementioned analyses for estimation of merchantable biomass. Results of the analysis yielded several nonlinear models for estimating aboveground tree biomass with relatively high precision and low bias. The optimal model was chosen based upon precision and bias of estimation for all four species and was shown to produce precise estimates of merchantable biomass as well as total aboveground biomass for each species.

Parent Publication

Citation

Goerndt, Michael E.; Larsen, David R.; Keating, Charles D. 2014. Evaluation of total aboveground biomass and total merchantable biomass in Missouri. In: Groninger, John W.; Holzmueller, Eric J.; Nielsen, Clayton K.; Dey, Daniel C., eds. Proceedings, 19th Central Hardwood Forest Conference; 2014 March 10-12; Carbondale, IL. General Technical Report NRS-P-142. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 234-250.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/47417