By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 20 Sep: A book on ‘Recent Advances on Melia dubia Cav.’ was released by Arun Singh Rawat, Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, here, today. The species of Melia dubia, known as Dreak or Gora Neem, is an indigenous fast growing short rotation multipurpose tree, and has potential to fulfill industrial and domestic wood requirements. The Director General expressed happiness that a comprehensive book has been written on an indigenous tree species purely based on results of experiments and experience of scientists gained through a long-term multidisciplinary and systematic research programme funded by ICFRE and executed by its Institutes. The tree is native to Eastern, North-Eastern and Southern parts of India, and thrives well commercially under varying soils and environmental conditions upto 1800 m above sea level. The deciduous tree contributes substantially to soil rehabilitation and improves soil quality with shading of enormous litter annually.
The systematic research programme even enabled ICFRE to release ten varieties for commercial cultivation in Northern India with increased productivity. The Forest Research Institute has signed a license agreement for commercial multiplication of these productive varieties with ITC. The planted forests are the sole source of supply of raw materials to wood based industries. Melia dubia has therefore been recommended as a suitable indigenous tree to supplement substantially in fulfilling industrial and domestic wood requirements. It is also a fact that India imports face veneer every year from different countries. Promoting this species under agroforestry would help in reducing this burden substantially, and ensure harnessing other multipronged benefits of higher productivity, enhanced income and availability of abundant quality raw material for wood-based industries.
The book has been edited by two professional Scientists of ICFRE, Dr Ashok Kumar and Dr Geeta Joshi, working at Forest Research Institute and ICFRE Headquarters, respectively, under the supervision of Dr Sudhir Kumar, Deputy Director General, ICFRE. Experts fields have written various chapters of the book from different parts of India. The book covers dynamic attributes from cultivation to utilization perspectives on application of tools of genetics, tree improvement, silviculture, biotechnological, reproductive biology, DUS descriptors, wood analysis, and so on.
On this occasion, Directors of ICFRE Institute from different parts of the country, Deputy Director Generals of ICFRE and all authors, who contributed different chapters, were present online and witnessed the release of the book.
