Production of Agarwood Resin in Aquilaria beccariana Using Inducement Technology

Agarwood is a type of resin impregnated wood produced from the wounded Aquilaria trees. This agarwood gives a pleasant fragrant when it is burned. It becomes high-priced and increase demanded in the world due to the depletion of wild agarwood in the forest caused by illegal poaching activities. Agarwood resin can only be produced by injuring caused by lightning or wounded by animals under natural conditions. However, the natural process of resin accumulation is uncertain and time-consuming. Therefore, we developed an agarwood inducement technique that served as the alternative way to induce the agarwood formation in a short time. Three inducement techniques, including the injecting method, knocking method and combination of injecting & knocking method were applied to induce resin formation. In this study, we evaluated the technique for producing agarwood in species Aquilaria beccariana, which is native and only can be found in Borneo Malaysia. For A. beccariana trees treated with the inducement technique, resin formed and spread throughout the cell in the trunk. The evaluation results showed that the agarwood yield per tree reached around 5 to 7 kilogram. Furthermore, this agarwood derived from the induction was found to have a similar quality with the wild agarwood. This indicates the inducement technology had successfully produced agarwood resin in A. beccariana with a grade similar to the wild agarwood.