Estimation of heather biomass using ground based methods for the calibration of remotely sensed data.

Abstract

Assessing the standing biomass of heather at range management or landscape scales by destructive sampling is laborious and expensive. We present a simple method for determining standing heather biomass by field survey that does not require destructive sampling. The method is a form of point quadrat survey. We counted the number of young (<1 year old) and old (>1 year) stems touching a cane inserted into the heather sward and recorded canopy height. A I-m² area of the sampled sward was then cut destructively. In a stepwise multiple regression model the shoot and height data explained 88% (P < 0.001) of the variation in weights of cut heather samples. This method is currently being used to test the effectiveness of using remote sensed images to estimate heather biomass and grazing status. We present early results from this work.