Pongamia for Bio-Energy and Better Environment

Pongamia pinnata, popularly known in India as Karanj has been found to be one of the most sustainable trees with regard to its soil enhancement and carbon sequestration properties apart from its stability in seed and oil yield. Pongamia pinnata is also credited with several preventive and curative properties as established by Ayurvedic medicine. It may be recalled that in the decades of nineteen seventies a few villages reaped sustainable incomes in the face of acute and chronic droughts that plagued the nation, solely due to the availability of some old Pongamia / karanj tree stands around those zones. Kranj oil has exhibited promise as a source of green energy. Nevertheless, the research on improvement of Karanj and its management as a productive plantation is nebulous. It is heartening that the Monograph on Karanj by Dr. M.V.R. Prasad fills this void. Dr. Prasad has been pursuing the work on oil bearing perennial trees of which Pongamaia pinnata has been studied in greater detail during the decades starting from nineteen eighties to date. The Monograph describes clearly as to how Pongamia pinnata could be harnessed to exploit the proven and potential benefits cited above, in addition to giving valuable information on its genetic improvement and plantation management.