Jatropha Curcas Seeds - Drought resistant

Pongamia Seeds

Pongamia Pinnata Plantation:

Pongamia Pinnata is a medium-sized evergreen or briefly deciduous, drought resistant, glabrous shrub or tree 15-25 m high. Pongamia Pinnata could be used to supplement traditional, highly polluting fuels and provide employment to landless and marginal people. The seeds of Pongamia contain about 40% oil, which ca be converted to biodiesel by trans-esterification. Pongamia Biofuel requires no engine modification, when blended with diesel in proportions as high as 20 percent. Pongamia Pinnata is a preferred species for controlling soil erosion and binding sand dunes because of its dense network of lateral roots. Pongamia Pinnata root, bark, leaves, sap, and flower also have medicinal properties and traditionally used as medicinal plants.

Botanical name: Pongamia pinnata
Authority: (L.) Pierre
Family: Fabaceae - Papilionoideae

Common English names: Indian beech, karum tree, oil tree, pongam, pongam oil tree, poonga-oil-tree, seashore mempari

Native: India

Exotic : Australia, China, Egypt, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tonga, United States of America, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand

Pongamia Pinnata Seeds

The economics of use of biofuels as an alternative to diesel largely depends yield of fruit and recovery of oil. The planting material used in Pongamia cultivation mainly decides the Pongamia oil production.

Pongamia Seeds from genetically qualified and high yielding trees ensures highest oil yielding pongamia trees. These collected Pongamia seeds are engaged for improved Depulping, Pre-cleaning, Pre-treatment, Drying and Grading.

Pongamia Pinnata - A Biodiesel Tree

Using Pongamia for biodiesel production has the two-fold environmental benefit of growing trees that store carbon while producing oil for fuel. Pongamia will grow on land not fit for food crops and does not need nitrate fertilizers like most other biofuel crops.

Pongamia as a confident source of biodiesel has high oil content (approx. 40%) and can grow on malnourished soils with low levels of nitrogen and high levels of salt; it is fast becoming the focus of a number of biodiesel research programs.

The main advantages of Pongamia are that the higher recovery and quality of oil than other crops, no direct competition with food crops as it is a non-edible.

Pongamia has no direct competition with existing farmland as it can be grown on degraded and marginal land.
Whilst there are marked advantages in the use of Pongamia for biodiesel, also as it a legume Pongamia could able to fix its own nitrogen from the soil, minimizing the need for added fertilizers.