Plantations International News

Female teak grower and family at Ban Densavang.
Female teak wood raiser as well as family at Restriction Densavang.By Tony Bartlett(ACIAR). Originally published by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Study. For the previous eight years, ACIAR has actually been carrying out research right into the development of teak-basedagroforestry systems in northern Laos. While agroforestry research study is inherently a long term recommendation, it is ending up being noticeable that this ACIAR research in Laos is currently creating advantages for farmers and also that current brand-new study on the incorporation of broom lawn right into the agroforestry system has terrific potential to improve the outcomes for women.After years of methodical research on thinning as well as spacing of teak plantings and also conversations with farmers, the task has created a cutting-edge teak wood agroforestry system that is better matched to farmer demands as well as a lot more most likely to produce high returns than the present approach to teak planting.7.5 years of age large spaced teak at NAFC Under the current system farmers have actually traditionally grown over 2000 trees per hectare and after that only had the ability to grow plants between the trees for the first few years. In the new system the trees are planted in paired rows along the shape and after that a spacing of 10-15 metres is

left in between the following paired row of teak, in which the farmers can continue to grow their crops as the trees grow. This method causes 650-900 teak wood trees being planted per hectare which better matches the arise from spacing trails that shows best growth is attained when 600-800 trees per hectare are planted.The spacing research study

7.5 year old wide spaced teak at NAFC
trials suggest that it needs to be possible to have the teak grasp the smallest commercial dimension for teak logs by age 10-12 year. Whereas in various other trials making use of the existing teak wood planting regimen, also when a 30 % of basal location thinning has been applied at age 9, there are still no trees having gotten to commercial dimension at age 15.15 years of age thinned teak wood at Ban Densavang The 68 farmer houses from 21 villages who are taking part in the brand-new agroforestry tests are additionally gaining from using enhanced quality teak seed startings created through the ACIAR led teak tree breeding program.After collaborating with the farmers in previous trials the task team has actually altered its teak management system to much better match farmer demands. Instead of advising certain ages where the teak wood ought to be thinned and trimmed they now encourage the farmers to do a little bit of silviculture whenever they are tending their crops.In north Laos females and also youngsters spend 3 months of the year gathering broom lawn heads from forested locations which are then dried out and marketed into markets in Vietnam, China and also Laos. The existing ACIAR job(FST/2012/041)

15 year old thinned teak at Ban Densavang
is conducting research on the organic variability of mop lawn as well as the leads for integrating this non-timber woodland product into the teak agroforestry system.Woman collecting mop grass The task group has actually made 114 collections of mop grass from nine places in north Laos as well as 90 of these have been planted out in a trial at the North Farming and Forestry College near Luang Prabang. These growings display substantial variant in regards to the length as well as weight of the inflorescences– which establishes the rate that the women obtain. The project team has actually likewise compiled data on broom lawn harvesting as well as advertising from 9 sites

over the 3 month collection period.It found that there are substantial differentials(3-4 times)in between prices paid for poorer as well as far better quality mop yard inflorescences. These 2 study tasks suggest that, through the option and breeding mop turf, there is good capacity to improve the high quality( and also for this reason worth)of broom yard product that might be expanded in teak-NTFP agroforestry systems.Brooms for sale

Woman collecting broom grass
in Luang Prabang Plantations International