Gaharu is one of the non-timber forest products commodities with gubal products containing mastic (aromatic resin). Gaharu has long been traded as an elite commodity for industrial purposes. Gaharu-producing trees include trees whose wood species are ugly, can not be used for building materials or for making other equipment because of its rapid weathering. But the fragrance of gaharu aroma makes it an important trade commodity in the perfume industry environment, cosmetics, hio, stairs, and medicine. Gaharu as a drug, among others, as a snake poison snake medicine, scorpions and dental pain medication.
Gaharu products are traded from all over Indonesia, such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Papua. The gaharu exploitation that has been carried out regardless of the rules of sustainability has resulted in the declining gaharu tree population since 1995, CITES has incorporated gaharu into Appendix II, as its population has decreased, even closer to the endangered category. Therefore, efforts to develop crops that produce gaharu through cultivation are perceived urgency.
According to WCMC and TRP the average supply capability of gaharu exporting countries is 670 tons / year. The amount of exports above tends to decline every year. For example, Indonesia is the largest exporter of natural gaharu with a number of 300 tons / year, since 1998 the ability of Indonesian exports only reached 30 tons / year. The above is due to the low effort of gaharu cultivation and the decrease of gaharu population due to overexploitation.
With inokoulasi gaharu expected to achieve the following goals:
Increase people's income. Sleeping land owned by the community can be utilized for cultivating gaharu, as well as to improve the populist economy through gaharu commodity.
Preserving Gaharu-producing plants.
Opening New Jobs.
Meet the gaharu market needs, both domestic market and export needs.
1. Inoculation technology
Inokulan
The inoculants developed by the Gaharu 88 Group are inoculants which ideally can stimulate the accumulation of aromatic resin around the borehole and ensure no decay / decay of wood in the borehole.
Until now the development and research of Inokulan is still running. This is intended to further increase the speed of formation of pig and the quality of pigs produced.
Inoculation
The stages in gaharu penginokulasian are as follows:
- Preparation of inoculation equipment such as electric drill, genset, seat belt and other equipment.
- Cleaning of the area around gaharu trees. The area of deciduous gaharu trees should be clean so as to facilitate the inoculation implementers in carrying out their duties.
- Drilling tree for bolt hole climbing. The distance and direction of the hole depends on the range and habits of each inoculation implementer (D = 1.3 cm).
- Drilling of trees for inoculant holes. To minimize the reduction of tree strength due to drilling, the borehole series is made with a spiral pattern with a 45º slope. Distance between holes ± 4 cm and vertical distance ± 21 cm. In the second stage stage II & III the drill holes were made ± 3 cm above the previous hole with a horizontal distance of ± 1 cm.
- Inclusion of Inokulan. Inoculant infusions may use a variety of ways depending on the type of inoculant. For liquid inoculants can be used spoit, while solid inoculant can use a kind of gutter and thrusters or directly using the hand.
- Closure of the inoculation hole. After the inoculant is inserted the borehole should be sealed immediately with wax for harmful contaminants and water does not enter into the inoculation hole.
- Peeling the skin. To limit the growth of trees towards the side while increasing the mass of wood (D = constant, ρ = increased) is done stripping the bark of the tree until the branch boundary.
- Branch Pruning. To reduce the wind pressure need to be done pruning gaharu tree branches that have been inoculated.
2. Maintenance and Fertilization
Fertilization needs to be done especially in low fertility land. Giving fertilizer can be done twice a year, with the size of 5 kg of per-tree fertilizer. Cleansing of planting area also needs to be done to avoid the growth of weeds (herbs) especially in the rainy season or 4 times a year.
3. Harvest and Post Harvest
Gaharu sapwood production will be formed after 2 months treatment. This begins with changing the color of the wood around the injection into brown and textured hard and smells fragrant. Harvesting can be done starting from 1 year after penginokulasian by cutting trees. The quality of sapwood gaharu produced is directly proportional to the level of tree fertility and duration of penginokulasian. The longer penginokulasian the higher the quality of gaharu pig is produced. Gaharu poppy pieces cleared from the wood part that does not form becomes sapwood. Cleaning of eucalypt from gubal requires a workforce that has special skills, so as not to reduce the sap class due to lack of skilled labor. Then do the sorting by class (Super, AB, BC, C1 and C2). To reduce the water content, gaharu pig pieces dried by drying in the sun. For gaharu kemedangan class other than can be marketed directly can also be distilled for the oil.
