Handling a large volume of data from nutritional surveys of forest plantation is a hard task in studies of tree nutrition. A mathematical process named "Method of Mathematical Chance" was developed, based on probability calculation, to interpret such data by levels of nutrient sufficiency. By this method it is possible to identify optimum, sub-optimum and supra-optimum ranges, for each growth factor, as well as permit the classification of tree stands according to their distribution in each sufficiency level. In this paper we describe the "Method of Mathematical Chance" and provide an example of its use for eucalypt trees, with data collected between 1988 and 1994 from the Aracruz cellulose plantations in Espírito Santo State, Brazil.
nutritional survey; forest plantation; nutritional critical level; nutritional sufficiency level; Eucalyptus grandis