Assessment on timber and carbon in rubber plantations with special reference to the wet zone of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Rubber (Hevea brasilensiss has traditionally been cultivated for the latex extraction; however, itsimportance in other uses, particularly producing quality timber and sequestering atmospheric carbonas a permanent sink, is also often highlighted. The amount of timber produced and carbon sequesteredin rubber trees has been assessed in isolations. Those values would differ under different growthconditions and to date, no simple protocol is available to quantify the amount of timber and carbon inrubber plantations. Therefore, the study reported here was aimed to develop simple growth models toassess the timber production and carbon fixing capability of rubber plantations in Sri Lanka.

Initially, a growth function was developed to assess the girth development with respect to age andthereafter another three functions to quantify the amount of timber, biomass and carbon in the rubbertree based on girth diameter. Also, wood density variation with age of the tree was modeled todetermine the biomass in timber under different age categories. The assessment on the availablecarbon was based on the carbon content in unit biomass and the total amount of biomass in the tree.Growth data required for the girth development function were gathered from secondary sources andgirth measurements made on existing rubber clearings. Destructive sampling was conducted to assessthe timber, biomass and wood density.

Based on above models, an average rubber tree at 30 years achieves a girth of 88.64 ern and produces0.656 m' of timber and 594.46 kg of biomass. The amount of atmospheric carbon fixed in timber atthis age was estimated as 193.7 kg per tree and 45.86 MT per hectare. However, total amount oforganic carbon fixed in above ground components was 220.8 kg per tree and 52.27 MT per hectare.The models of this study were developed under general conditions in the wet zone, hence should bevalidated for drier regions of the country before any wide scale adoption.