Determination of Peak Standing Crop Biomass of Herbaceous Shoots by the Harvest Method

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Abstract
The peak standing crop biomass of herbaceous shoots, a measure of net primary shoot production, was determined in 3 1st-year old fields by 2 methods: sampling the peak community standing crop at one moment; and summing the peaks of the individual species over the entire growing season. The methods gave similar estimates of peak standing crop in the 2 old fields where the major producers reached peaks at comparable times. In the 3rd old field, a large discrepancy existed between the 2 estimates as a result of the diverse times at which the major producers reached peak standing crops. It was valid to use an estimate of net primary shoot production based on the community peak standing crop only when the dominant species had similar phenologies. Whenever this occurred, such an estimate had a smaller statistical error associated with its mean than an estimate derived from the sum of individual species peaks.