Forest Tree Physiology - Present Position and Future Prospects of Research in India

In spite of the paramount importance of plant physiology and the pivotal position that it occupies amongst various disciplines of forestry,its application in scientific forestry remained a much neglected subject till the Expert Committee on Forest Research Institute and Colleges, Dehra Dun (1956) recommended the establishment of a unit for this work in the expanded Botany Branch of this Institute. A section of Plant Physiology was, thus, started in 1960. This paper deals with a survey of the present status of research in forest tree physiology and its future scope in this country. The survey reveals that the scope for research in forest tree physiology is immense. It is more or less a virgin field. Some of the problems in the solution of which tree physiology can play an important role are indicated. These relate to natural and artificial regeneration of forest species; their water and mineral requirements; the germination, viability, storage and dormancy of their seeds; the proper exploitation of their economic products; their growth and development and the use of auxins in the ischolar_maining of cuttings, in parthenocarpic development of fruits, in abscission of leaves, in pre-mature drop of flowers and fruits, in inducing meristematic activity and as weedicides. The programme of research that is proposed to be followed in the newly started Section of Forest Tree Physiology at this Institute is outlined and results of some of the preliminary experiments that have been conducted since the setting up of the Section are briefly summarized. A suggestion is made that the State Forest Departments should establish wings of plant physiology in their own research units so that problems in forest tree physiology relating to their own soil and climatic conditions may be worked out.