Silvicultural performance of Eucalyptus urograndis at different planting densities

Abstract

The objective of the article was to evaluate the effect of 18 different planting densities on the development of dendrometric variables of clone H13 of Eucalyptus urograndis, in Ribas do Rio Pardo, MS, performing measurements in an experimental area of a competition wheel. The experimental design proposed by Nelder allowed the evaluation of planting densities ranging from 180 to 1.332 plants ha^-1. The dendrometric variables were: DBH, total height, insertion height and crown length, individual volume, volume per hectare, form factor and conicity, which were studied separately and jointly through Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Among the results, most of the variables were influenced by density, and the ones that stood out were DBH and individual volume in the lowest densities; it was also possible to observe the tendency of these planting densities to produce conical trees, harmful to the wood yield in logs, on the other hand the greater amount of trees influences more the total volume of wood, in addition to producing less conical trees. The principal component analysis allows the observation of the relationships between the variables studied, allowing to know which variables are contributing more to the joint variance of the data, and this information is essential and effective to assist in forestry planning.