(Santalum album) – problems and prospects

Silviculture management of Indian
Sandalwood (Santalum album) –
problems and prospects
Arun Kumar, A.N., Geeta Joshi, Rathore T.S.
and Ramakantha V.
Institute of Wood Science and Technology,
Bengaluru
The sandalwood
tree as if to
prove, how
sweet to
conquer hate,
love, perfumes
the axe that
lays it low
- Tagore
One of the few species which has been
studied for more than 140 years
The parasitic nature of sandalwood was
reported in 1871 and is considered to be
one of the earliest report.
In 1899, the spike disease of Sandalwood
was first noticed in Coorg
Between the year 1903 to 1910, nearly
7,00,000 sandal trees were uprooted in Mysore
alone to check the disease and the rough
estimate of the possible loss was 35 lakhs
rupees then.
In 1903, the Government of Mysore offered a
reward of Rs. 10,000 for finding cure for
sandal spike (to the best of our knowledge it has not
been claimed by anyone till now)
Forest Research Laboratory, established in
1938 by the His Highness Raja Rishi, Nalwadi
Krisharaja Wodeyar, Maharaja of Mysore,
desired that work pertaining to sandalwood
also has to be carried out
With its reorganization in 1956 as Regional
Research Centre of FRI and C, an exclusive
division named after SANDAL SPIKE was
started.
In 1977, Sandal Research Centre (SRC) was
set up to undertake research on wideranging aspects of silviculture, genetics, and
management of sandal.
The first extensive sandalwood survey for the
entire country was carried out after SRC was
created
Distribution in India
9034 sq kms;
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (90%)
Three criterias
• Population density
• Tree size
• Heartwood depth
(Venkatesan and Srimathi, 1981)
(S. N. Rai, 1990)
Sandal Tree Improvement Research Plots
Activity
Location
Year
Area (ha)
Seed stands
Marayoor (Kerala)
Chitteris (Tamil Nadu)
1980
1980
3.00
5.00
Provenance
Trials
Nallal, Bangalore
Kuderu, Anantapur
1981
1982
3.14
0.24
Clonal
germplasm
banks
Gottipura, Hoskote, Bangalore
Karvatnagar, Chittoor, AP
Kurumbapatty, Salem, TN
1980-82
1983
1983
1.00
0.10
0.50
Biotype
Gottipura, Hoskote, Bangalore
germplasm bank
1982
0.75
Clonal seed
orchard
Nallal, Hoskote, Bangalore
Akkarampalli, Tirupati, AP
Jarakabande, Bangalore
1982
1983
1984
1.35
1.00
1.50
Half sib progeny
trials
Nallal, Hoskote, Bangalore
1980
1981
1983
0.20
0.65
1.20
Variability studies in sandal
Variation in bark colour, texture and thickness. Rust
coloured bark is associated with fast growth in
sandal. (Kulkarni and Srimathi, 1982)
About 60% trees produce flowers and
fruits twice a year, 36 % once a year
and
4%
through
out
the
year.
(Ananthapadmanabha et al, 1991)
Seeds show polymorphic characters in
size, shape, germination and vigour.
(Nagaveni and Anathapadmanabha, 1986; Veerendra and
Sarma,
1990;
Ramalakshmi
and
Rangaswamy
1997;
Annapurna, 2003)
Six types of leaves - Ovate (common),
lanceolate (12%), elliptic, linear, small
and big. Discernible at juvenile stage.
(Kulkarni and Srimathi, 1982 Bagchi and Veerendra, 1985)
Variability studies in sandal
Sandal Phenotypes
Thindlu type : Characterised by small diameter class trees
around 4 to 8 cm dbh with dark brown bark which comes
out in irregular flakes. Heartwood dark brown.
Chickballapur type: Small bluish green leaves, similar to
spiked plant, broad sapwood.
Robust type of sandal: Compact crown with lush green
foliage, thick sapwood and fast growing as compared to all
other types. (Srimathi et al., 1983)
Genetic diveristy by using molecular markers
(Jonathan
Brand, 1990 ; Angadi et al, 2003 ; Shashidhara, 2002 ; Suma and Balasundaran, 2003,
2004 and Nageshwar Rao 2004)
Two traits having research and commercial
interests are Heartwood and oil
Various studies have reported about oil and
heartwood
Ludlow (1869) Age of maturity and quality of
growth and wood all depended on soil
Rama Rao (1904) Variation is there between
different girth classes and also in the
individuals of the same girth class.
Cameron (1910) Tree attains
maturity at 27 to 30 years.
commercial
Puran Singh (1911) Trees growing in fertile
soils had lesser oil content (3.26 to 4.24%)
compared to trees growing in poor rocky and
gravelly soils (3.75 to 5.02%) (n=15)
Puran Singh (1915) Neither elevation, age nor
locality has any definite relation with the
quality of the sandalwood oil percentage but
trees growing in comparatively good, fertile soil
yield heartwood poorer in essential oil. (n=40)
Troup (1921) and Fischer (1927) reported that
the formation of heartwood and oil is yet to be
studied in detail.
Proceedings of 5th Silviculture Conference
Dehra Dun - 1941
Mitchell
Trees with different hosts are found to have
different heartwood content
Heartwood is more in trees from 6” to 30” grown
in a poor type of deciduous forests.
From 30” to 40” girth the heartwood formation
increases very rapidly for sandal grown in the
semi-evergreen (33.3% more heartwood) than
trees of a similar girth grown in deciduous
forest.
It will take a long time to determine factors ideal
for formation of heartwood and increasing the
oil content and merits investigation
Laurie (1941)
The quantity of heartwood in a tree of given
size is found to vary to a baffling degree.
Venkata Rao (1941)
The heartwood does not start till the tree is 15
to 20 years
Factors which have a deleterious effect on
normal growth is conducive to the formation of
heartwood (wood in knots)
Scanty rainfall, dry locality and clayey soil
combined with paucity of host plants may be
contributing causes for the low oil contents
Rao (1959)
Suggested to watch the
progress of heartwood formation in
evaluating
sandal
trees
for
their
production of aromatic wood using wood
cores
Bhatnagar (1965) Reported that sandal
trees reach full maturity at an age of 50 to
80 years or more and a tree may reach
physiological maturity without forming any
heartwood
First All India Sandal Seminar - 1977
Kaikini (1977)
Research on the rate of formation of
heartwood
in
sandal
under
diverse
conditions of growth and on the oil content
of such wood
Estimate of the rate of growth with the
rate of formation of heartwood
Second All India Sandal Seminar - 1981
Shanmuganathan (1981)
No attempts were made to
genetically superior genotypes
isolate
Formation of heartwood has not been
subjected to much critical study so far
Studies on the growth rate and yield have
to be intensified
Jayappa et al. (1981) Studied regional variation in the
yield and quality of sandalwood oil
Tree parts : Roots, Jaj and Milwa
Shimoga, Hassan, Tarikere, Dharwad, Mysore, Salem and Satyamangalam
Oil content (%)
Wood sample Minimum (%)
Maximum (%)
Root
6.56 (Mysore)
8.43 (Hassan)
Jaj
4.22 (Satyamangalam)
5.79 (Hassan)
Milwa
2.42 (Tarikere)
3.52 (Hassan)
Alpha and Beta santalol
Wood sample
Minimum (%)
Maximum (%)
Root
88.07 (Hassan)
95.16 (Dharwad)
Jaj
89.09 (Hassan)
94.98 (Tarikere)
Milwa
88.62 (Hassan)
94.12 (Mysore)
Location
n
Avg Dia
(cm)
No HW
Avg HW
depth (cm)
HW
(%)
Hyderabad
10
13.87
3
3.26
47.24
Kollapur
10
11.80
2
2.92
49.94
Janiguda
10
14.98
0
3.53
47.65
Wynad
10
12.89
4
2.80
36.12
Seoni
10
10.17
0
2.21
44.27
Kuchnahalli
10
14.62
0
2.69
37.43
Kushalnagar
10
20.76
0
3.97
42.42
Chamarajnagar
10
13.21
2
2.58
36.44
Guindy Park
10
14.97
2
3.02
39.92
Puttur
10
11.67
2
2.00
34.70
Courtallum
10
12.59
2
2.24
35.57
Dindigul
10
10.77
5
1.48
26.49
Coimbatore
10
11.33
3
1.85
32.01
Kurumbapatti
10
20.08
2
2.55
24.69
Variation in heartwood content in same diameter
class (~11cm) at FRL (n=50)
Heartwood colour Population (%)
Brown
44
Yellowish brown
28
Diameter
(cm)
Height
(cm)
Heartwood
(%)
Mean 11.163
4.86
43.45
SD
0.25
2.03
17.97
CV
2.28
41.98
41.37
There is no fixed year when the heartwood
starts forming. It can start as early as 5 to 6
years in some trees and as late as over 15
years
Heartwood (cm)
5
r = 0.64
4
3
2
1
0
25
30
35
40
45
50
Strong
relationship
between girth
and heartwood
content
Girth (cm)
Class Interval
n
r
26.5 – 30.9
18
-0.01
30.9 – 35.3
26
0.11
35.3 – 39.7
18
0.16
39.7 – 44.1
22
0.09
44.1 – 48.5
12
-0.20
No relationship
between girth
classes and
heartwood content
r = 0.04
3.00
Oil (%)
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
0
1
2
3
4
5
Heartwood (cm)
No relationship was observed between heartwood
and oil contents
Process of heartwood formation and further oil
production are two independent process
Present status of Sandal production
Recent survey reveal that sandal trees of
economically viable girth (>30cms) are
scarce in its natural habitat in Karnataka
and Tamil Nadu
Available information on sandal raises more
questions than answers alone
INHERENT DISADVANTAGES … ...
 Predominantly found in two Southern
states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
 Considered as a ‘Royal tree’ till the
recent past
 In – situ conservation has been very
difficult
 No established plantations, provenance
or progeny trials
 Information about its growth is scarce
 It is not the biomass, but the heartwood
and oil – both genetic and environment
plays enormous role
INHERENT ADVANTAGES … …

Flowers twice a year


Cross pollinated species
Disseminated by birds
 Good coppicer


Huge regeneration capacity

Relaxed Government policy
Basically a hardy species grows in
most of the localities
Yet to understand…
Heartwood and its formation
Role of Genetics and environment
heartwood formation is still a grey area
in
Understanding biosynthetic pathway of oil
formation is still not clear
The need of the hour in sandalwood
improvement … …
 Mass distribution of seedlings
 Raising of sandalwood plantations
 Encourage growing of sandalwood far and
away from its natural habitat.
Uniform rules and regulations in sandalwood
across states
Research aspects on improvement,
management and productivity of
Sandalwood
has
crossed
the
exclusive domain of researchers,
but has to be redefined with a need
based approach supported with the
end users active participation.
We acknowledge the support and
encouragement of
Dr. A. Seetharam, Retd. Project Coordinator, ICAR
Dr. Nataraja Karaba, Professor, Dept. of Crop
Physiology, UAS Bengaluru
Mr. Y. B. Srinivasa, UAS Bengaluru
THANK YOU

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