Making sense of the link between tiller density and pasture production

Abstract

Interpretation of tiller or shoot density data requires resolution of two independent, confounding effects, namely size/density compensation and what is here called the "leaf area effect". Size/density compensation implies that at higher herbage mass, individual tillers or shoots are larger, but the population density is correspondingly decreased. The leaf area effect represents difference in sward leaf area for two tiller populations. Such leaf area differences may be environmentally or genetically determined, but must of necessity be expressed through change in tiller size and/or tiller density as "yield components" of leaf area. The theoretical basis for distinguishing between size/density compensation and the leaf area effect is to consider tiller or shoot density and herbage yield, respectively, as X,Y co-ordinates in a size/density plot. When such a plot is drawn on a logarithmic scale, points along a line of -l/2 slope show size/ density compensation with respect to each other. Movement of points to the right or left of the size/ density compensation line is evidence of a leaf area effect. It is shown that when the size/density effects are removed from a data set in this way, rankings of experimental treatments for the leaf area effect can often be reversed compared with the ranking of uncorrected tiller density. Tiller density data corrected for size/density compen-. sation in this way appear to be a useful indicator of sward productivity. Keywords: sizeldensity compensation, sward productivity, tiller density