Development of compatible taper and volume equatons for calabrian pine in Antalya regional directorate

The construction of such equations has taken a number of approaches as demonstrated by the vast amount of literature in this area. The compatible taper and volume equations were developed by using Demaerschalk, (1972), Demaerschalk, (1973), Bruce et al. (1968), Max and Burkhart (1976), Parresol et al. (1987), Jiang et al. (2005) and Cao et al. (1980) equations for Calabrian Pine (Pinus brutia Ten.) trees located in Antalya Forest District Directorate, and these models' fitting results were compared.For determining the sample plots some parameters such as age, site class and density were used. One sample trees were cut down in 216 sample plots and totally 216 trees were examined. The proposed models generally performed better for tree diameter and tree volume. Results show that the Jiang et al. (2005) taper equation was superior to the other equations in predicting diameter, while the Demaerschalk (1972) taper model provided the best predictions for tree volume than the other models. The coefficient of the determination of the stem profile equation is 0.977, while the coefficient of the determination of the stem volume equation is 0.969. The best predictive Jiang et al. (2005)'s stem taper equation and Demaerschalk (1972)'s stem volume equation were decided to be appropriate at 0.05 significant level for the studied Calabrian Pine trees by testing independent data. In this study, the volume equation based on Demaerschalk (1972)'s equation produced better predictive volume predictions than Uğurlu and Özer (1979) and Çatal (2009)'s double entry volume equation and tables. The results obtained have shown that the models formulated can be used to predict stem taper and stem volume of Calabrian Pine trees in Antalya where the data were gathered.