The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : State is hub of sandalwood propagation

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Thursday, Mar 20, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

State is hub of sandalwood propagation

M. Raghuram

Tissue-culture technology has helped produce many saplings

BANGALORE: Karnataka is known as the citadel of sandalwood (“Gandhada Gudi” in Kannada). Now tissue-culture technology, developed specially for sandalwood propagation by the city-based Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST), has helped the State become the largest supplier of tissue culture saplings of this aromatic tree in the country. Propagation of saplings has already begun on a large scale.

According to the Head of Tree Improvement and Propagation Division of the IWST, T.S. Rathore, in the past, the felling of sandalwood trees by smugglers had become so widespread that the indigenous needs for sandalwood had to be met by imports.

Despite the fact that Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Manipur used to grow sandalwood in great numbers, the denudation was so rapid that even producing seeds for induced propagation had became difficult, he said.

But with the removal of restrictions on propagation and cultivation on sandalwood in the post-liberalisation period, sandalwood had become a ‘freely cultivable tree’.

Following this development, large-scale private cultivators, individual growers, commercial propagators and cultivators have taken up development of sandalwood plantations.

Sandalwood cultivation has attained industrial proportions in India.

Dr. Rathore told The Hindu that the value-added products of sandalwood fetches a good price in the international and domestic markets.

This has spurred a new economic activity, that of cultivation as well as processing, and value-addition of sandalwood.

Australia has become a major sandalwood producer with large plantations of East Indian Sandalwood (Santalum album L.). It will be the sole supplier in the world for Indian sandalwood and value-added products for the next ten years according to the Managing Director of the Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KSDL) B.H. Anil Kumar.

The KSDL has also developed its own nursery with an annual capacity of 60,000 saplings.

The special tissue-culture technology enables the IWST to produce 1 lakh saplings a year.

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