This project will develop decision support tools for:
- the prediction of genotype, site and management effects on
stand production;
- end-use suitability of plantation grown products;
- stand-scale fluxes of carbon and water and risks inherent in
plantation development.
These tools will help managers to tailor silviculture for site
attributes and allow precise targeting of fertiliser and pesticide
application.
Project 1.3 takes the science produced under project 1.2 and
integrates it with information from project 1.1 to provide tools
for forest managers.
Project 1.3 recognises significant gaps in available decision
support tools and their capacity to predict the effect of competing
vegetation on forest growth. The project carries out basic science
in the areas of plant-plant competition: the niches of forest
understorey species (including weeds); and the role of tree and
site variability, and seemingly random events, in forming tree
size-class distributions in forests.
This knowledge will be delivered to forest managers in improved
decision support capacity.
The leader of project 1.3 is Dr Michael Battaglia
(Ensis).
Senior scientists are Yue Wang (University of
Melbourne/Department of Sustainability and Environment), Philip
Smethurst (Ensis), and Paul Adams (Forestry Tasmania).
Please browse the employment and scholarship pages for any
job vacancies that may be open in relation to the work undertaken
in this project.
