Clonal plantations play a key role to increaseagroforestry production enriching farm communities: Indian experiences

Abstract

Because of poor results and ununiformity in seed route plantations, Clonal plantations have proven to be a best option to get desired yield in a stipulated time period. Various R&D supported programme by Research Organization, Institutes, Industries conducted to develop new clones of Eucalyptus, Poplar, Shisham, Casuarina, Gmelina, Teak and other woody species have now provided a good support to growers. Farmers of the country are using best management practises to obtain desired results in terms of better returns through high yield from their plantations. Various Institutes like Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, G.B. Pant nagar University, ICAR, IARI, State Forest Departments of U.P. Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other states. Various Paper Industries like Century, Star, BILT, JK, ITC, WCPM, TNPL, SPB, Mysore etc. have played a vital role to promote agroforestry plantations among farmers so as to grow the raw material for their future use. Farmers adopted good practices of management to get the desired results from their plantation on their farm land through commercial plantations of above species. It is well known fact that the scarcity of labours and other constraints suffered the agriculture of marginal farmers. The introduction of clonal forestry and plantations in country have proven a boon for farm communities and also promoted the agroforestry. Now farmers are using their degraded land, unutilized land using various agroforestry models and taking the advantage of plantations and earning good returns from their lands.