INTRODUCTION TO RED SANDERS
Pterocarpus santalinus is the biological name of red sanders and are commonly identified by the names of red saunders, red sandalwood, Rakt Chandan, and saunders wood. It is a species of Pterocarpus endemic to the southern Eastern Ghats mountain range of South India. Clazy Pension Tree cultivation land is a native soil to red sanders.
The trees are found in the dry hill areas of the Palakonda range of Eastern Ghats often on rocky ground and at altitude ranging from 150-900 m. It has a sister species Pterocarpus marsupium Roxb. that resembles the Red Sanders and medicinally used in various preparations.
The heartwood, a useful part of the plant is extremely hard, blood-red in color with occasional light yellow streaks. Leaflets 3, often 4-5, alternate, petiolate, the uppermost larger in size. Flowers are yellow in axillary, branched racemes.
HISTORICAL FACTS
The timber of red sanders was historically been valued in China, particularly during the Qing Dynasty periods, and is referred to in Chinese as zitan and spelled Tzu-T'an by earlier western authors such as Gustav Ecke, who introduced classical Chinese hardwood furniture to the west. An exquisite chair made of red sandalwood can be seen today in China's Forbidden City in Beijing, inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and once used by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty.
Due to its slow growth and rarity, furniture made from zitan is difficult to find and can be expensive. It has been one of the most prized woods for millennia.
GLOBAL USAGE OF RED SANDERS
The heartwood of the tree is a good source of red dye. In Europe, Red Sanders extract has a long history of use as a red colorant for fish processing. More recently interest has been shown by the food industry to expand the range of applications.
On the business side, it is a good raw material for musical instruments and luxury furniture, according to the Indian Journal of Applied Research. It also yields Santaline dye, which finds use in coloring foodstuff and pharmaceutical preparations
Red sanders have been used for making the bridge and also the neck of the Japanese musical instrument Shamisen. It has a great demand for the heartwood. The market value of red sanders is highly valued across the globe and Clazy Pension Tree offers the best long-term investment options for our customers in the cultivation of red sanders.
MEDICINAL VALUE
According to the Institute of Wood Science & Technology, the red sandalwood gives a cooling effect when applied externally for inflammations head-ache, bilious affections, and skin diseases and improves treating headache, skin diseases, fever, boils, scorpion sting and to improve sight.
It is an anticoagulant, improves local circulation, and used for traumatic wounds, abrasions, and bruises. The bark extract is reported to possess anti-hyperglycemic activity. In Indigenous systems of medicine, Red Sanders enters into the compositions of numerous astringent remedies used in complaints like bleeding piles, hemorrhages, dysentery, etc. The wood paste is applied externally as a cooling agent, purifier of skin after bathing. The biogeochemical investigations of scientists revealed that the heartwood and leaves and soils in which these plants grow contain a large quantity of rare elements, uranium, and thorium which can further be exploited. A higher concentration of lanthanum (La), cerenium (Ce) were also observed in both the red sanders plants and soils
MARKET VALUE
Red Sanders wood popularity can be gauged from the fact that a tonne of red sanders costs around INR 1 crore which will be 1,36,852 USD in the international market. The market value of red sanders wood as of now per Kg will be INR 10,000 which will be USD 137 per Kg. Are those numbers didn't surprise you and this will be the current trend and the market value of red sanders will be increasing day by day.
Red sanders is now free of export restrictions
According to the order issued by The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), an agency of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, on February 18, 2019, revised its export policy to permit its export if it is obtained from cultivated land. All red sanders farmers, who weren’t allowed to export their produce as the foreign trade policy prohibited it, now can.
This is a great step taken by the DGFT which will benefit red sanders farmers.
PRICE TREND AND INFLATION RATE
According to the article published in Business Standard on November 25, 2014, 'A' grade red sanders gets quoted at Rs 1.95 crore a tone.
price for B grade ranged from Rs 155.35 lakh to Rs 48.45 lakh per MT while for grade C, the price ranged of Rs 40.72 lakh and Rs 15.15 lakh.
Subject To Climatic Conditions
INFLATION AND EXPECTED RETUNS *
Let us explore the yield trend of red sanders in 1 acre of land with an inflation rates
