Biomass estimation of dendrocalamopsis vario-striata plantation in southeast China

Bamboo plantation is one of the fastest developing forest resources in Asia, Latin America and Africa countries. As one of the few sympodial bamboo which can be planted in subtropical areas, D. vario-striata can be good alternative for bamboo plantation development. With Eighteen 400m² randomly-established plots in Zhejiang of China and a total of 67 sample bamboos, we established regression models of the biomass of each component for individual bamboo D. vario-striata at each age, and made an estimation to the biomass density and its allocation of the bamboo. The biomass of the culm, aboveground total and belowground total of bamboo D. vario-striata at 1 year, 2 year and 3 year old can be estimated using its DBH with good precision and reliability in accordance to the regression models of linear, power and exponential, but the precision and reliability were poor of the regressions between the DBH and the biomass of branch and foliage, implying an unfeasibility to estimate the biomass of branch and foliage of bamboo D. vario-striata using DBH. The total biomass density of bamboo D. vario-striata plantation in southeast China was estimated to 61.14 t/ha, with the majority stored in culms. The proportion of biomass of branch and foliage was low.