Background:

The unsustainable exploitation of natural resources for production of jigat mainly from Litsea and Persea species has resulted in a severe crunch in raw material availability for the agabatti industry. The solution lies in cultivation of the species on a large scale instead of depending on the wild resources. Integrating the cultivation into agroforestry practises will also help improve the resources as well as supplement the livelihood of farmers. Such an approach would require developing propagation and cultivation practises for the important species. The standards propagation techniques using seeds will also have to be supplemented with clonal propogation methods so that superior accession in terms of quality, higher yields and adaptability to different climatic factors is facilitated. Methods of vegetative propogation and micropropogation are ideally suited for the purpose.

A package of practises to undertake cultivation of the species either as plantations or in agroforestry is necessary to enable farmers or forest departments to take up such ventures with ease. Standardisation of nursery practise will have to be taken up for the different species since they are not conventially planted species.

Pilot plantations of the selected species in suitable locations in forest and non-forest areas including agroforestry systems will help serve as demonstration plots as well as sites for standardizing harvesting operations. Various silvicultural regimes will be required to be tested for optimizing productivity and economic viability.