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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