Comparison of laboratory and field methods for the estimation of leaf area of wild fruit species

Abstract

This work was carried out in order to study different laboratory and field methods for estimating leaf area of wild fruit species, belonging to the Myrtaceae: "uvalha" plant (Eugenia uvalha Camb.), cattley guava plant (Psidium cattleyanum Sabine), feijoa plant (Feijoa sellowiana Berg) and Surinam cherry plant (Eugenia uniflora DC). Among the laboratory' methods utilized as "standard methods", good results were obtained with the use of an automatic leaf area meter, planimeter or by the gravimetric method (photocopy or Whatman paper). Among field methods, best results were obtained with linear regression. The estimation of leaf area y for all studied species could be obtained through the equations: y = 2,658 + 0,554 x for cattley guava plant; y = 0,75 x or y = 0,856 x - 2,115 for feijoa plant; y = 0,68 x for "uvalha" plant and y = 0,69 x or y = 0,503 + 0,643 x for Surinam cherry plant, where x = leaf length x leaf width.