Evaluation of relationship of production and utilization of Agropyron cristatum and Stipa barbata with height, basal diameter and canopy diameter as dimensional variables

Measurements of production and utilization of key range plant species are of utmost important tools for making range management decisions specially for stocking rate determination. A study was conducted to examine the relationships of production and utilization of Agropyron cristatum and Stipa barbata, as key grasses in Chaharbagh region of Golestan province, with some dimensional parameters. For this purpose, plants height, basal diameter and canopy diameter and their dry weights were measured. Primarily, correlation matrices and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to assess the relationships of these three dimensional variables with production. The three variables were then evaluated for predicting production by using best subset and stepwise regression approaches. Utilization was assessed based on percentage of height removed in relation to percentage weight removed. Results showed that basal and canopy diameters could usefully predict the production of the two grasses. Finally, because of subjectivity of canopy diameter measurements and its weak role in explaining production variations, just basal diameter was considered in models, having linear relationship with production and the coefficient of determinations were calculated to be 72.4 and 71 for A. cristatum and S. barbata, respectively. Therefore, dimension analysis is an appropriate approach to estimate the production and utilization of range key grasses.