Koa Stand Development and Grazing Impacts
People have a lot of questions about koa. "How long does it take for a full-statured stand to grow?" "How long do I have to wait before I get trees of commercial size?" "To maximize the profitability of a plantation, how long do I have to wait, and how many trees of what sizes will I get?" "If I want to thin, how many trees should I remove, and how long until the stand is again fully stocked?" "Can we graze cattle under and amongst koa trees, and what will this do to the koa stand?" Questions like these are quantitative, meaning that instead of "yes" or "no" answers, they ask "how much" or "how long," and the answers to them have to be based on measurements. Questions like these are also long-term, and would take longer than most professional careers (and certainly longer than funded research projects) to answer by "trying and seeing." Finally, the answers to these questions are affected tremendously by all the soil, weather, insect, disease, economic, and management factors and fluctuations that affect tree growth, vigor, and value. Our research tackles these questions. Everything presented here is the result of measurements on koa trees in field environments, mainly upland areas of the island of Hawaii.
Download this file:
Download this file
—
PDF document,
2251Kb
Details
Author(s): James H. Fownes
Event:
Koa: A Decade of Growth
1996 - Honolulu Hawai’i
