Estimation of Individual Leaf Area by Leaf Dimension using a Linear Regression for Various Tropical Plant Species

Leaf area estimation is significant to assess leaf development and plant growth. A simple and efficient model (Regression model) was developed to estimate leaf area of various tropical plant species using leaf dimension (length x width). The objective of this study was to determine a relation between leaf area and leaf dimension to get the best fit line of a linear regression. A total of twenty plant species were selected at Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. The leaf shape and plant growing environment were investigated as a background data. The leaf shapes were elliptic, acuminate, aristate, obtuse, lobed, linear, peltate and lanceolate. The recorded plant growing environment were location, soil pH and sunlight exposure. The plants grew at a slope or flat, shaded or high exposure of sunlight with the soil pH between 4.8 and 7.3. A regression equation for each leaf was established with coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.9. It strongly proved that the leaf areas of all the plant species are well correlated with leaf dimension (length x width). The linear regression is not influenced by different leaf shape and growing environment. Generally, the plant grew at high exposure of sunlight indicated higher leaf area. There is no obvious trend of leaf area at different soil pH. From the R² values, it concluded that the leaf area of individual plant can be estimated by the linear regression established in this study by determining the leaf length and width.