Estimating forage production using some vegetative parameters in Sphaerocoma aucheri Boiss

Direct biomass measurements such as clipping method is difficult, destructive and time consuming. This research was performed to study possibility of Sphaerocoma aucheri forage production using some vegetative traits (such as cover characteristics including its area mean diameter, small diameter, large diameter and height of the plants). Dry forage production and some independent variables were randomly collected, from 50 plants of S. aucheri in a 4 years enclosure sites in Hormozgan province. After eliminating the outlier data and conducting normal test, multi variables regression in SPSS package was used to analyses data. The results showed that 77% changes in dry biomass of the species can satisfactory be estimated using canopy cover data The coefficient of cover area and constant index in regression model were 3.192 and 6.283 respectively. Validated model revealed that Sphaerocoma aucheri dry forage can be estimated properly measuring canopy cover of the species.