Agroforestry Systems published a Sandalwood research paper of Forest Management Group of University of Sri Jayewardenepura

The recent volume of Agroforestry Systems, a SCI Expanded Journal published a research paper on Sri Lanka sandalwood (Santalum album). This paper written by Upul Subasinghe, Kuluni Piumika, Sanduni Senerath and Dhanushka Hettiarachchi illustrates the variation of heartwood contents, oil contents and key compounds of sandalwood oil across various geographical areas of Sri Lanka. It includes the data collected and analysed over a period of four years under the funding of National Research Council of Sri Lanka. So far it has been downloaded 70 times indicating the value and the quality of the paper on aromatic research groups all around the world.

The details of the paper are given below.

Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10457-016-0001-5

Agroforestry Systems

December 2017, Volume 91, Issue 6, pp 1157–1164| Cite as

Heartwood assessment of natural Santalum albumpopulations for agroforestry development in Sri Lanka

• Authors
• Authors and affiliations

• S. M. C. U. P. Subasinghe
• S. C. Samarasekara
• K. P. Millaniyage
• D. S. HettiarachchiEmail author

1. 1.
2. 2.

Article

First Online: 23 August 2016

• 70Downloads

Abstract

Sandalwood (Santalum album) is developing as an important agroforestry crop in Sri Lanka. The value of S. album depends upon the oil content in the heartwood and its composition with reference to sesquiterpene alcohols cis-α-santalol and cis-β-santalol. According to the popular belief in Sri Lanka, certain S. album trees do not produce oil even after maturity. Therefore the present study was conducted to identify the presence and the variation of essential oil, its composition and the variation of growth parameters of nine distinctive S. album populations growing under different agroecological zones in Sri Lanka. According to the results, heartwood content, oil content and its constituents varied within and between the populations. It was interesting to observe that cis-α-santalol and cis-β-santalol were not detected in certain S. album trees though the oil contents of those trees were higher than the average. Heartwood content of the trees did not show a correlation with oil content, dbh and height. However, the oil content was significantly correlated with tree dbh and height. Majority of the trees (62 %) had heartwood essential oil in compliance to ISO standards; only a 31 % of the total sampled trees had the essential oil content above 2 % (w/w). Dry mountainous Badulla district had the highest percentage of trees complying the ISO standards. These findings are vital for identifying suitable sources for agroforestry propagation of S. album.

Keywords

Sandalwood Santalum album Sri Lanka Alpha and beta santalol