Green Info

Raw Material Plantations

RAW MATERIALS

The conventional raw material i.e. pulpwood required in the production process of the company is around 9.80 Lac MT per annum, which consists of farm grown material such as Eucalyptus, Acacia and Casuarina. The species wise requirement is as under:-

The procurement is done from the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

CAPTIVE PLANTATIONS

The research wing of West Coast Paper Mills Ltd. works pro-actively towards the promotion of technology-based plantations. We have successfully made use of captive plantation techniques to increase the productivity and sustainability of our plantations. The method of clonal forestry used in captive plantation has gained wide acceptance in India.
Plantation managers and foresters having a progressive mindset have accepted this advanced technology for increasing the green cover over land affected by deforestation. Over the years, we have effectively adapted the clonal technology strategy for our tree improvement programme. This is because clonal technology profitably captures and exploits the best combinations and re-combinations of plant genes in the shortest possible time. We ultimately aim to produce quality seeds through our tree improvement programme. A seed carries the improvement made from the previous generation to the next generation. Therefore, promoting only the best quality seeds will help in the faster and healthier growth of trees in captive plantations as the improved and superior seeds are the most important source of propagation.
At our captive plantation centers we collect and propagate full sib seeds or half sib seeds gathered from known sources or partially known sources. We use the well-established practices and principles for plant breeding of trees. Our industrial plantations are equally benefited from these well known principles and practices. Apart from this, ‘Seed Orchards’ are a means of obtaining large quantities of genetically improved seeds by allowing selected outstanding trees (plus trees) or their progeny to cross, usually under natural conditions. Cuttings from the plus trees are used to establish clonal seed orchards or seedlings raised from seed collected from the plus trees are used to make seedlings in seed orchards. In both the cases, the orchards are isolated
and managed for seed production.
With a view to provide genetically superior, fast growing, disease resistant and best quality planting stock for improving the yield from the plantations, vegetative propagation is an excellent approach. Local community plantations and small holder agro-forestry are also the ones that have benefited from our clonal forestry techniques for captive plantations. We aim to increase the effectiveness of land in surrounding districts using tree improvement techniques for agro-forestry. Through our efforts we want to help rural communities to enhance the productivity, suitability, and sustainability of their land use.

Our tree improvement programe consists of the following:

The tree species and the source of seed within the species are the main determinants of the success of our efforts and the productivity that we derive from captive forestry plantations. If the proper species is used then higher gains from the forestry improvement programmes are assured.