Poplar plantations could revolutionize biomass production, boosting renewable energy access.
This study aimed to improve how we estimate the amount of biomass in fast-growing poplar plantations. Researchers studied how different factors influence the accuracy of these estimates in a high-density poplar plantation in Spain. They found that the age of trees affected biomass estimation more in the first year after cutting the trees down than in later years. To make more accurate predictions, they recommended using a minimum of 50 trees in the model. The researchers also discovered that including the number of shoots along with tree diameter helped make biomass predictions more precise, especially across different tree ages. These findings suggest better ways to figure out how much wood can be harvested from these plantations for things like bioenergy.