Leaf area estimation by regression curves using the product of the length by the breadth of the leaf blade as an independent variable is commonly used in plant growth analysis. However, depending on the nature of the plant species and the farming conditions,it is possible to find variations which affect this allometric relationship, leading to non-universality of a single regression curve. Due to this problem, the present work aimed to evaluate the effect of irrigation and ontogeny in estimating the leaf area of Hancornia speciosa to test the hypothesis that the irrigation would affect such allometric relationship. It was found that the regression models obtained for the irrigated and the non-irrigated plants differed from each other, and there was the need to include specific leaf area into the model to estimate the leaf area for non-irrigated plants. The non inclusion of that variable in the regression model caused a difference on the estimative that increased with the reduction of the specific leaf area. Recently expanded leaves from irrigated and non-irrigated plants differed to each other in their specific leaf area due to dry matter differences but not due to tissue length.
Hancornia speciosa; allometric relationships; specific leaf area; multiple regression; leaf anatomy
