Growth Performance of Teak Plantations Managed Under Different Treatments

Abstract

Tectona grandis, commonly known as Teak, is an exotic species and is one of the mostdemanding and valuable timber species grown in Sri Lanka. Main factors that affect thegrowth of teak are site quality, planting material and silvicultural treatment applied whenmanaging the trees as plantations. Teak plantations have been established mainly in the dryand intermediate zones of the low country. The present study was conducted with theobjective of comparing the growth performance across the growth stages of young teakplantations managed under different treatment regimes.

Nine teak plantations in the intermediate zone of the low country were selected for thepresent study. Three different management regimes were used for the selected plantationswhich can be categorized as, less intensive management (LM) and two intensive managementregimes (IM). Dbh and height of trees of the sample plots located at random were measuredusing standard methods. The tree growth records in those plantations in the past wereobtained by the available data records. Timber volumes of measured trees were calculatedusing the allometric equation developed by Subasinghe in 2004 for Teak. One way ANOVAtestwas used to compare the differences ofdbh, height and timber volume values of differentplantations considered in this study.

Results indicate that dbh, height and timber volume of the IM plantation in Monaragala aresignificantly higher than those of other plantations across the growth stages. There are nosignificant differences in growth parameters and volume between state-owned plantations.There are also no significant differences between dbh, height and volume between LM andstate-owned plantations.