Chapters authored
Castor (Ricinus communis): An Underutilized Oil Crop in the South East Asia
Castor belongs to a monotypic genus Ricinus and subtribe Ricininae. It is one of the oldest plants, getting importance as an agricultural crop for subtropical and tropical countries in the world. Castor is a hardy plant, requires low input, tolerates marginal soils, is easy to establish in the field, is resistant to drought, and gives yield 350–900 kg oil per hectare. Castor oil shows great functional value in energy sector, industry, and pharmaceutical. In recent years, it received increasing demand in the international market for its more than 700 uses, ranging from medicine and cosmetics to biodiesel, plastic, and lubricants. The oil is significant for many industrial uses compared with other oils from plant sources because of its high and low temperature-tolerant properties. This chapter has been written to provide botanical descriptions, ecology, agro-technology, and versatile industrial uses.
Part of the book: Agroecosystems
Koroch (Pongamia pinnata): A Promising Unexploited Resources for the Tropics and Subtropics
The demand of petroleum fuel is increasing day by day. To meet up the energy demand, people of developing countries like Bangladesh basically used energy from indigenous sources, which are reducing quickly. Hence, it should be emphasized to explore unconventional fuel to overwhelm the crisis of petroleum fuels. Koroch (Pongamia pinnata L. Pierre) is a quick-growing leguminous tree that has the ability to grow on marginal land. Higher oil yield as well as physicochemical properties increases the suitability of using Pongamia as a promising substitute for supplying feedstock of biofuel production. Besides biofuel production, P. pinnata has multipurpose uses as traditional medicine to animal feed, bio-pesticides, and bio-fertilizers. A better understanding and knowledge on the ecological distribution, botanical characteristics, physiology, and mode of reproduction along with physicochemical properties, and biosynthesis of oil is essential for sustainable production of biofuel from P. pinnata. In this chapter, we discuss overall biological and physicochemical properties as well as cultivation and propagation methods that provide a fundamentals for exploiting and improving of P. pinnata as a promising renewable source of biofuel feedstock.
Part of the book: Forest Biomass