Suitability of Eucalyptus Clones in Eastern Gangetic Plains of Uttar Pradesh, India- A Case Study in the Raebareily District, India

Abstract

In India, Eucalyptus is one of the prime species in Agroforestry and farmers are mostly diverting towards clonal planting material of this species for more returns in a shorter rotation period. Eucalyptus is among the most widely cultivated forest trees in the world over 22 million hectares. Eucalyptus hybrid and E. tereticornis are the two most widely planted Eucalyptus trees in India. The area under agroforestry in India is estimated as 25.32 million ha (Mha), or 8.2 per cent of the total geographical area of the country. A total of 53.32 Mha, representing about 17.57 per cent of the total reported geographical area (TRGA) of India, could potentially be under agroforestry in the near future, thus making agroforestry a major land-use activity, after agriculture and forestry. In the recent past, clonal forestry had played a significant role in producing better production yield in a shorter time. It is also well established that the performance of Eucalyptus clones is superior over normal seed-borne plants. Therefore, there is an urgent need for improvement in the production of forest resources to meet the needs of fuel-wood, timber and wood production on a sustainable basis and increase biomass yield from farm forestry plantations. Thus, the main objective of this study was to assess the growth performance of Eucalyptus clones in the Gangetic plains of Eastern Uttar Pradesh in the Raebareily district for the identification of suitable planting material. The trial was conducted under the statistical design of Complete Randomized Blocks with 3 replicates and 3 x 2 m spacing for all 19 clones of Pragati Biotech, Punjab (413,07,526, 04, K-25, 288, 2013, 2023, 2070, 2136, 3018, 2031, P-13, P-14, P-23, P-32, P-45, P-50, P-66) of 03 eucalyptus species (E. hybrid, E. tereticornis and E. camaldulensis) along with control for all 20 treatments in respective districts. Based on growth performance parameters such as height, girth, diameter, basal area and tree volume, overall clones- P-13, P-50, P-23, 526, P-32, 3018 and P-45 performed superior over other treatments in the Raebareily district. Here, all well-performing clones of the Punjab series belonged to E. camaldulensis only whereas 3018 is E. hybrid. This study has clearly shown that the selection of clones for a particular site is very important to get maximum productivity of clonal eucalypt plantations in and around Eastern Uttar Pradesh.