Data collection has formed a major part of this project to date. Over the approximately eight years the project has been running, many thousands of measurements have been taken, in accordance with a series of pre-defined data collection protocols, with even more automatic data collected.
Who collected the data?
- Technical Services Unit (TSU) of Forest Research from the research sites in England, Scotland and Wales.
- Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Northern Ireland (DARDNI) from the research sites in Northern Ireland.
What was involved?
- Keeping automatic weather stations running, and downloading the data periodically (meteorological data was collected automatically using Delta-T sensor equipment)
- Assessing the plots every year
- Assessing the insect and disease damage at points through the year
- Taking other measurements as required at various sites
- Ensuring the data is delivered to the correct people at Alice Holt
What protocols were employed?
- Biomass partitioning - to record above ground growth partitioning (e.g. into branches and shoots), below ground biomass and collect soil and root samples for laboratory analysis
- Insect and disease - to assess the incidence of insects and diseases and estimate the amount of damage to leaves and stems
- Respiration control - to record respiration measurements of roots and shoots
- Canopy architecture assessment - to collect data to be used to produce computer simulations of SRC plantations and to investigate variation in canopy architecture between sites
- Root sampling - to investigate below ground biomass of coppice varieties across a range of soil and climate types
- Mensuration variables - to define the code of measurement procedures for extensive, mixture and intensive site experiments
What's of interest
Useful sites