Vol. 11, Special Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
MR Nayak, PJ Mishra, B Sahoo, LK Murmu and S Paramguru

Abstract:
The study was conducted during the period 2017–2021 under On-farm Trial as mandatory activity of KVK, Koraput. The main objective of the on farm trial was to investigate the effect of different spacing levels on the growth and utilizable biomass production in Eucalyptus camaldulensis plantation grown in the Eastern Ghat High Land Zone of Odisha, India. Establishing the optimum plant density in forest trees is a major challenge under the present land constraint situation. Therefore, present trial was carried out to address the issue by planting trees at different spacing viz., 3m × 3m, 3m × 2m, 3m × 1.5m, and 3m × 1m. Results exhibited significant effect of spacing on the growth and yield of the trees. Among the different spacing regimes, the wider spacing of 3m × 3m significantly gave better tree height, diameter at breast height, utilizable biomass and maximum mean volume per tree, where as the maximum total volume per hectare was observed in 3m × 1m spacing and minimum was observed in 3m × 3m spacing at different growth period. Maximum total utilizable biomass (73.025 kg tree^-1) was obtained from the wider spacing of 3m × 3m and maximum total biomass (106.198 ton ha^-1) was obtained from the closer spacing of 3m × 1.5m. In general, the maximum tree height, DBH, tree volume and utilizable biomass production per tree were recorded in wider spacing and the minimum in closer spacing. Similarly the total wood biomass and volume production per hectare was observed in closer spacing, due to the more number of trees presentas compared to wider spaced regimes.