Estimation of fruit production of Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas L.) and Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) in Arasbaran forests

Importance of Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) in providing food, medicine, hygienic and industrial materials has caused to harvesting of more amount of them annually. These products are entered in the local, national, and international markets and therefore, the local people gain high income through selling them. Therefore, identifying and measuring of NWFPs is one of research priorities in Iran. This study was carried out to collect necessary data for estimation the amount of produced fruit of two important species in Arasbaran forests: Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) and Hazelnut (Corylus avellana) for economic studies. Transect sampling was used to estimate the annual products of the fruits. A number of trees were selected in systematic random manner. Characteristics such as weight of fruit, crown height, crown diameter and, the number of sprout at each tree were measured to investigate on correlation between these characteristics and the relations among them. In the next step, suitable model was fitted in order to estimate the amount of fruit production. PROC CORR and GLM of SAS 9.1 software were used for statistical analysis. Finally, the fruit amounts of cornelian cherry and hazelnut were estimated as 914 kg and 395 kg per hectare, respectively.