Alometric Model for Estimation of Leaf Area of Garcinia brasiliensis Mart. Through Non-destructive Method

The objective of the present study was to test and establish mathematical models to estimate the leaf area of Garcinia brasiliensis Mart. through linear dimensions of the length, width and product of both measurements. In this way, 500 leaves of trees with age between 4 and 6 years were collected from all the cardinal points of the plant in the municipality of São Mateus, North of the State of Espírito Santo, Brazil. The length (L) along the main midrib, the maximum width (W), the product of the length with the width (LW) and the observed leaf area (OLA) were obtained for all leaves. From these measurements were adjusted linear equations of first degree, quadratic and power, in which OLA was used as dependent variable as function of L, W and LW as independent variable. For the validation, the values of L, W and LW of 100 random leaves were substituted in the equations generated in the modeling, thus obtaining the estimated leaf area (ELA). The values of the means of ELA and OLA were tested by Student's t test 5% of probability. The mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE) and Willmott's index d for all proposed models were also determined. The choice of the best model was based on the non significant values in the comparison of the means of ELA and OLA, values of MAE and RMSE closer to zero and value of the index d and coefficient of determination (R2) close to unity. The equation that best estimates leaf area of Garcinia brasiliensis Mart. in a way non-destructive is the power model represented by por ELA = 0.7470(LW)0.9842 and R2 = 0.9949.