NON-DESTRUCTIVE METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE LEAF AREA OF THE ENERGETIC POPLAR

Four genotypes of poplar energetic were evaluated, being determined for a random sample of leaves, leaf area (LA), perimeter (P), length (L) and width (W). High values of the correlation coefficients between the series of data determined by these parameters have been identified, which indicated a geometrically well-defined pattern of the leaves. This gave the possibility to determine a calculation formula which, based on the product of leaf length and width, corrected with a specific constant (k) of each genotype, helped to obtain the foliar surface under the conditions of a minimum acceptable error, and safe statistical. The approximation relation of the foliar surface (LA) is LA = l. W. k. It was chosen opted for such a relationship, to the detriment of other models, because it is defined by a simple expression that can be used efficiently when calculations for a high volume of samples are required. The foliar surface constants k was obtained for each genotype, which made it easier to obtain optimal foliar surfaces based on the dimensional parameters of the leaves. The k values were different for each genotype, and are within the range (0.62, 0.74).