Contribution of Agroforestry Tree Species in Vindhyan Region of Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract— As the population of India is increasing at a very fast rate; the land-holding size of farmers shrink at a very fast rate and agroforestry is the only way to optimize the farm productivity. The trees play an important role in fulfilling daily needs of people. The Eastern part of Uttar Pradesh in India is in great deficit of tree plantations on agriculture lands. Agroforestry is only way for growing trees on available lands in block/boundary plantations, thus, reducing pressure on forests for tree based needs in day-to-day life. As per latest report of FSI, 2021, only 9.23 % (6.18 % forest and 3.05 % Tree cover outside forests) area is covered with trees in the state of Uttar Pradesh. In Vindhyan region, total 15489782 trees were enumerated, where highest (2509795) number of trees were found in 121-150 cm girth class, followed by 2283850 trees in 151-180 cm girth class and 1996340 trees in 91-120 cm girth class Similarly, Eucalyptus tree possessed highest contribution (18.29%), followed by Mango(15.1%), Teak (14.34%) and Neem (13.83 %) .The smallest (629466) no. of trees were found in 271-300 cm followed by 756034 in 0-30 cm class. It clearly indicates that overall there is urgent need of time to plant these species in different agroforestry models to overcome wide demand supply gap of traditional tree species like, desi Mango, Neem, Teak, Eucalyptus, Mahua and Shisham. Similarly, new species, like Mahogany, Melia, Gamhar and Chironji may be planted in various agroforestry combinations in view of their great economic value. In recent past, Mahogany gave a good response in the region and 44358 no. of trees were found in 0-30 cm girth class in respective districts. Like Gamhar was also seen in some villages with 7747 no. of trees in 0-30 cm girth class in studied districts. The condition of Mahua planting is alarming as being a slow growing species, only 6798 no. of trees were found in 0-30 cm girth class. In new species, Melia dubia istaking good place, as 28646 trees were found in 0-30 cm class in villages. Chironji trees were rare in Mirzapur and Sonbhadra district and completely absent in Prayagraj district. In a total, only 4480 Chironji trees were recorded in the Vindhyan region. The girth class wise trees in Vindhyan region depicted that in 271-300 girth class, minimum number of trees were existing followed by 0-30 cm girth class and 31-60 cm class. This is clear that old trees were harvested at very fast rate for most of the species and less young plantations showed that these established and new tree species should be planted at fast rate in agroforestry so as to maintain their sustainable availability.