The induction techniques of resinous agarwood formation: A review

Abstract

Agarwood is an aromatic, resinous plant that contains volatile, fragrant sesquiterpenes and phenylethylchromones found in wood tissue near damaged or diseased Aquilaria sp. However, natural agarwood production from young, healthy plants is insufficient to meet global market demand. Therefore, this article evaluates the impact of agarwood production methods on the success of the agarwood industry. Recent advances in artificial agarwood induction technology, including mechanical, bio-inoculants, chemical inducers, combinations of biological and chemical inducers, and in vitro plant tissue culture, have resulted in efficiently induced agarwood resin compared with conventional methods. Although interdisciplinary approaches have many advantages and disadvantages, it is encouraging that chemical inducers have a wide distribution in the trunk of Aquilaria sp. Also, able to consistently produce high quality agarwood resin. It can be concluded that different forms of inducers can be used to develop excellent quality agarwood in young plantation trees, equivalent to wild agarwood.