Author(s)

O Chikumbo & I M Y Mareels

Abstract

Two mathematical formulations for determining optimal silvicultural regimes and initial number of trees at planting for a forest stand are compared. One formulation incorporates competition mortality of trees and the other does not, The comparison is done for a high site quality and low site quality stands in order to account for any influence that may result from geographical variations. The conventional wisdom is that competition mortality is of no real concern in intensively managed forests, and we set out to investigate this by experiment. The formulations are based on Pontryagin’s maximum principle, using dynamical models in each case, for simulating the state dynamics of the optimal control systems

Keywords