The measurement of shrub forage weight: three methods compared.

Abstract

Three methodsfor measuringshrub forage (the capacitance probe, shrub dimension measurement, and the Adelaide technique) were applied to a common set of chenopod shrubs and compared on statistical and operational criteria. All methods gave linear relationships between forage and method reading and the Adelaide technique was best overall. Dimen- sion measurement was least accurate for predicting forage, but its simplicity makes it appropriate for some purposes. However, this method was not able to cope satisfactorily with differently-grazed shrubs. The capacitance probe proved difficult to use on these shrubs (for which it was not designed) because of physical'limitations of relatively large spreading canopies and of uneven ground, and because the probe's bulk made it tiring to use. It seems likely that it would be unable to cope satisfactorily with shrubs of vary- ing degrees of grazing and water status, but no data were available to demonstrate this.