Faidherbia (Faidherbia albida) is being promoted widely in interventions for combating desertification, re-greening of the Sahel, carbon offset and various agroforestry projects. However, there is a dearth of information on its growth and canopy development. There are also no guidelines for optimum stocking densities for practitioners to follow. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate scaling relationships between its growth in height, stem diameter and crown size and based on these relationships define stocking densities. In order to achieve this we: (1) modelled its growth in relation to plant density; (2) identified appropriate models for scaling stem height and diameter with crown size; (3) using information from step 2, we derived stocking densities under different scenarios. Crown diameter (CD) was found to scale with stem diameter (D) isometrically, while stem height scaled with CD allometrically. The scenarios derived using the CD–D scaling indicated that densities >50 plants ha1 are untenable when DBH exceeds 40 cm. High initial densities (>625 plants ha1) appear to lead to rapid self-thinning. Starting with low initial densities (
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-014-9432-xAltmetric score:
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Publication year
2014
Authors
Sileshi G W; Beedy T L; Chanyenga T; Nyoka B I
Language
English
Keywords
faidherbia albida, agroforestry, plant density, soils, cotton
