Quote:
Originally Posted by PR-Giants
The brightest minds realized the need for a standardized height, and chose 100 cm, it's a single measurement that reflected meaningful data from the short plants all the way up to the very tall plants.
Taking a measurement at a certain proportion of final height is really foolish and all you'll have is a bunch of useless data taken at various heights which is exactly what they wanted to avoid.
The United States Department of Agriculture measures at the standard 100 cm and they don't even mention the height they just expect a certain level of competence from the reader.
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First off, scientists at the USDA or CIRAD are really no different than me. They spent a whole lot of time in school and did a whole lot of research over their careers. You really shouldn't put as much faith in scientists to actually justify why they are measuring at a certain height. If you don't mention the height, that is poor science writing. As demonstrated, other people measure at other heights and actually say it. Rule 1 when writing scientific literature, justify it. They just chose a number. For forest trees, it is DBH, but it is actually at a different height and they grow much differently than bananas. I'll have PhD behind my name in 5 months, it won't mean that I am any smarter than I am today, and it won't mean that my arbitrary decisions carry any more weight than they do today. There is no rhyme of reason other than it being easy to remember. And for a descriptor, the measurement is pretty poor as it is influenced by environment. It's best use is probably as a dividend for height to come up with a ratio of height to p-stem diameter which is probably a descriptor that isn't too terribly influenced by environmental factors.