~ Oil Bearing Trees - Selection of Jatropha curcas
There are more than 100 tree species which bear seeds rich in oil having excellent properties as a fuel and which can be processed into a diesel substitute. Of these some promising tree species have been evaluated and it has been found that Jatropha curcas (Ratanjyot), Pongamia pinnata (Honge or Karanj) and Castor (Erand) are the most suitable. However, the advantage is clearly in favour of Jatropha curcas due to the following reasons.
Oil yield per hectare is among the highest of tree borne oil seeds.
It can be grown in areas of low rainfall (500 to 1,000 mm per year) and in problem soils. In high rainfall and irrigated areas too it can be grown with much higher yields. Therefore, it can be grown in most parts of the country. It can be grown in desert areas, with the help of drip irrigation (but it is expensive system).
Jatropha / Castor is easy to establish, grows relatively quickly and is hardy.
Jatropha / Castor plantations have advantage on lands developed on watershed basis and on low fertility marginal, degraded, fallow, waste and other lands such as along the canals, roads railway tracks, on borders of farmers’ fields as a boundary fence or live hedge in the arid / semi-arid areas and even on slightly alkaline soils. As such it can be used to reclaim waste lands in the forests and outside.
Jatropha / Castor seeds are easy to collect as they are ready to be plucked after the rainy season and as the plants are not very tall.
Jatropha / Castor is not browsed by animals.
Being rich in nitrogen, the seed cake is an excellent source of plant nutrients.
Seed production ranges from about 0.4 tons per hectare in first year to over 5 tons per hectare after 3 years.<---------------
The Jatropha plantation starts giving seed in a maximum period of two years after planting, while Castor bears seed in 5 months (It is a crop).
Raising plants in nurseries, planting and maintaining them and collection of seed are labour intensive activities. Except for the cost of fertiliser and transportation of the plants from a on-site nursery, all the activities in the nurseries and in plantation consist of labour.
Various parts of the plant are of medicinal value, its bark contains tannin, the flowers attract bees and thus the plant has honey production potential.
Like all trees, Jatropha / Castor removes carbon from the atmosphere, stores it in the woody tissues and assists in the build up of soil carbon. It is thus environment friendly.
Jatropha can be established from seeds, 3 months old seedlings and vegetatively from cuttings. Use of branch cutting for propagation is easy and results in rapid growth, but has no tap root. It makes plant weak. Castor is grown from seeds only.
The plant is undemanding in soil type and does not require tillage.
Types of Lands where It can Grow With advantage and Potential of Plantation
The list of advantages mentioned above make Jatropha / Castor plantation very attractive on the kinds of lands mentioned below. The potential for coverage of each kind of land in India, is as follows.
Forests cover 69 Million hectares of which 38 million hectares is dense forest and 31 million hectares is understocked. Of this 14 million hectares of forests are under the Joint Forestry Management. About 3.0 million hectares (notional) of land in forests should easily come under Jatropha curcas plantation.
142 million hectares of land is under agriculture. It will be reasonable to assume that farmers will like to put a hedge around 30 million hectares of their fields for protection of their crops. It will amount to 3.0 million hectares (notional) of Jatropha curcas plantation.
The cultivators are expected to adopt it by way of agro forestry. Considerable land is held by absentee land lords who will be attracted to Jatropha curcas as it does not require looking after and gives a net income of Rs 15,000 per hectare. Two Million Hectares of notional plantation is expected.
Culturable fallow lands are reported to be 24 million hectares of which current fallow lands are 10 million hectares and other fallows are 14 million hectares. Ten percent of such land (2.4 million hectares) is expected to come under Jatropha curcas plantation.
On wastelands under Integrated Watershed Development and other poverty alleviation programs of Ministry of Rural Development a potential of 2 million hectares of plantation is assessed.
On vast stretches of public lands along railway tracks, roads and canals. One million hectares of notional coverage with Jatropha curcas is a reasonable assessment.
On the basis of above analysis it should be reasonable to assume that with proper extension, research, availability of planting material and funds, plantation of Jatropha curcas on 13.4 million hectares of land is feasible in the immediate future. Institutional finance for private plantation and governmental allocation for public lands will have to be provided. Once success is achieved on the lands described above it should be possible to include very low fertility soils which are classified unculturable in this program. A significant proportion of such lands can also be brought under Jatropha curcas plantation in an economically feasible manner. It will result in rehabilitation of degraded lands.
Nursery Raising and Plantation : You can set up nurseries which will supply plants to the beneficiary to ensure success of plantations and quick return. It will also result in seed production at the end of the first year itself. Nurseries will supply seedlings to the farmers in their village. A seedling will start yielding seeds after a year of its plantation. A nursery can produce 20 lakh plants a year. Hence over a period of 3 years it will produce 60 lakh plants and will be sufficient to cover 2000 Hectares of plantation. For the non-forest area 1500 nurseries will be required. For the plantation in forest and adjoining areas one thousand nurseries will be established These nurseries may be developed by the individuals.
It is planted at a spacing of 3m X 3m and 1,100 plants will be grown in 1 hectare of Jatropha plantation. Pits are dug manually or using a post hole digger, attached to a tractor. Although using a sapling of 1 to 3 months grown in a nursery should not result in the usual rates of mortality of plantations, it will be reasonable to assume that 20% of the plants will need replaced.
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