Indian Rosewood
Karnataka in southern India, whose capital is the major city of Bengaluru, is a region with a booming forestry industry and forestry activities.
In this area, we have begun efforts to conserve the trees that are essential for making guitars.
![[Main Visual] インドローズウッド](images/pict_01.jpg)
Indian Rosewood
Scientific name: Dalbergia latifolia
IUCN Red List Vulnerable
CITES Appendix II Listed Species
The Indian rosewood that is used on the backboards, side boards and fingerboards of acoustic guitars is a species of rosewood (Dalbergia spp.) representative of India. Used in guitars, the heartwood of Indian Rosewood has an air-dried density of 0.7 to 0.9 g/cm3 and is exceptionally durable and easy to process. Indian rosewood with a beautiful dark reddish-purple wood surface is produced in Hubli, an area in the southwest part of Karnataka. It stands as an equally important material to mahogany, which is also used in the backboards and side boards of acoustic guitars, it is a key element in the traditional values of the instrument.
Indian rosewood has long been recognized as a high-end material for luxury furniture and guitars, and in India, is even more precious than teak (Tectona grandis), which is valued as a luxury material worldwide. The heartwood of these trees is useful as lumber, and forests have long been planted in Southeast Asia, with Indian Rosewood plantations in Indonesia going back to the early 1900s. Widely distributed today, timer from these forests is called Sonokeling.
Project Summary
With the aim of promoting sustainable use of Indian rosewood, this project will construct a scheme based on forest ecology and wood quality, working to preserve the forests in collaboration with local communities, the perspective of forest ecology and timber quality, through cooperation with Indian private companies (Overseas Traders), the Karnataka Forest Department (Bangalore), and a research institute (Institute of Wood Science and Technology, Bangalore).
Regions targeted by this project
Karnataka State, India
Indian rosewood trees and nationally owned forest management
Forests in India are fundamentally a nationally owned resource, and timber is harvested within established forest preservation zones. In addition to Indian rosewood, useful varieties of trees such as teak and Indian laurel (Terminalia elliptica) are sold at auctions after harvesting. In Karnataka, regulations state that 10 saplings must be planted for reforestation for every useful tree (such as Indian rosewood) that is felled. However, there is no regulation requiring the replanting of the same species after Indian rosewood is harvested, and in recent years teak has increasingly been favored for planting.
Tree growth and main uses
Much of the Indian rosewood harvested is used to make guitar fingerboards, side boards, and backboards. This wood is also used for making guitar bridges and heads, as well as small wood craft parts and folk crafts. Some Indian rosewood is also used as fuel in India, and the sawn-wood yield during processing is estimated to be approximately 25% of the original log volume. Although they are both rosewoods, Indian rosewood differs from Tanzanian African blackwood in that it grows straight upwards, allowing for a comparatively high yield also due to its wide range of uses.
Development of planting techniques
When we observe national forests, we can see that there is an overwhelming number of teak trees compared to mature Indian rosewood trees, which is thought to be the result of reforestation after harvesting. Although Indian rosewood trees are regenerating naturally, there are few saplings in these forests with a height off between 1 and 3 meters, which indicates that the next generation of trees is not growing. We are studying how to plant trees in the logged sites and in the gaps in the forest in order to promote natural regeneration and cultivate the next generation of trees. Seedlings are also being grown in a nursery built on private land to establish techniques and to create schemes for seed collection, raising seedlings, and other planting activities.
The connection between coffee and Indian rosewood
There are many large-scale coffee plantations in Madikeri, located in the southern part of Karnataka. All these plantations are built on previously forested land, but many Indian rosewood trees remain standing in the plantations. Originally preserved as shade trees necessary for coffee cultivation, rosewood felled from plantations is now widely available. Both the coffee plants and the trees are clear-cut from this land after around 30 years to make space for new coffee planting. Collaboration not only with state-owned forests but also with local industries may create new added value for forest conservation through the establishment of practices such as managing standing trees within plantations and ensuring rosewood is replanted during replanting cycles.
