Potential of short duration woody crops for pulp fibre production from arable lands

Abstract

Wood fiber is used for the manufacture of various kinds of paper, packaging material, tissues, paperboard etc. The conventional soft woods and hard woods used as raw materials by pulp, paper and cellulose based industries are depleting day by day and the wood imports are draining country’s foreign exchange. Short rotation industrial agroforestry plantations with the fast growing tree species are potential sources to fill this gap and to make the nation self reliant in pulpwood supply. Poplar, eucalyptus, leucaena and bamboo are the ideal species that can be grown commercially in private lands for meeting the wood requirements and has the potential to produce a biomass of 18 to 49 t/ ha per year. The pulp yield from these species ranges from 40 to 49% of the wood biomass produced. With the expansion of wood markets, high biomass yields and amenability for harvesting in short rotations, short rotation woody crops can be one of the profitable options for fiber production on lands which are not suitable for intensive arable cropping. Some of the important fiber supplying species which are grown under Indian conditions and their agroforestry systems and profitability aspects are discussed in the paper.