Morphological characterization of Terminalia chebula Retz. and Selection of Plus Tree from Kondagaon & Kanker Forest Stands of Chhattisgarh

Abstract

Terminaliachebula Retz. Harad is high value medicinal tree and important component of Triphla which is used to treat so many ailments under Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha system of medicine. The T. chebula trees are distributed very wide distribution in Chhattisgarh which comes under Dry Deciduous Tropical Forest of India. The dry fruit pulp is utilized for various preparations in herbal medicines. In Chhattisgarh the fruit is having lot of morphological variation in different forest stands. However, no agronomic or morphological research has been conducted on this species. Consequently, this research was conducted to identify the plus trees which are utilized to produce quality planting material in mass multiplication methods to supply farmers to plant this high value tree as a agroforestry tree and get extra income, there is very high demand of raw material which is dry fruit pulp. Forty four candidate plus trees were selected and mature fruits were collected for further statistical analysis of data. The morphological characters were considered using samples from 44 trees representing different populations Kondagaon and Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. The major morphological character fruit dry pulp weight which is sold in the market was recorded from Tatamari Keshkal Kondagaon Tree no 6(5.45 gm) maximum dry pulp followed by Tree no 5 (4.60 gm)maximum dry pulp was recorded whereas the, other plus tree from Kanker Distt. different sites were recorded Tirikdand, Charama (Kanker) Tree No 4(4.10 gm), Shingarbhat (Kanker) Tree No 7., (4.10gm)Botikanera, Kondagaon Tree No. 5 (4.9gm) fallowed byTree No.6(4.3 gm).Remaining other CPT, the Length, breadth fresh weight and dry weight was recorded less as compared with the above identified trees and forest stands. The lowest pulp & seed weight, size in length and breadth was observed Singarbhata Kanker Tree no.2 (1.45gm) fallowed by Bailgaon, Pharsgaon Kondagaon Tree no.1(1.75gm). The selected plus tree would be utilized to multiply true to true type of plants through budding for mass multiplication and distributed as quality planting material. The smallest size of Terminaliachebula fruit fetches good prize in market as a BalHarad.