Next: Karin Bartl, Carlos A. Up: Posters Previous: El Tahir Salih Shuiep, Contents Index
![[*]](footnote.png)
HABIBULLAH BAHAR, TARIKUL ISLAM, MONIRUL ISLAM
Khulna University, Agrotechnology, Bangladesh
Lac is the dermal secretion of the lac insect, Kerria lacca Kerr. deposit on a host plant (e.g. ber, fig). It is used to make expensive natural dye, burnish, coating material for ships, electronic purposes, raw material for lipstick, nail polish etc. Though it is a very perspective industry and host plants are available all over the country, especially in the southern districts of Bangladesh, lac cultivation is confined to some northern districts of Bangladesh. An experiment was conducted during July to October 2006 to find out the possibility of lac cultivation on ber plant in two southwestern districts of Bangladesh: Khulna and Satkhira compared to Chapainowabgonj, the main lac producing area.
The bark thickness, bark weight of ber plant as hose, ratio of harvested and inoculated lac sticks, harvested raw lac and harvested processed lac were measured and compared. Statistically non significant results were found meaning the similar performance of lac cultivation among the three regions. Numerically, the thickest bark of ber plant was found in Satkhira (0.100cm) and the thinnest in Chapainowabgonj (0.095cm). Mean bark weight of the ber plant was highest in Khulna (3.377 g) and the lowest was in Chapainowabgonj (3.254 g). Lac insects on ber plants at Khulna showed highest performance noticing 6.708 times harvested lac sticks against inoculated lac sticks and the lowest was found in Chapainowabgonj 6.360 times. A similar result was found regarding harvested raw lac. With regard to processed lac, the highest performance was found in Chapainowabgonj (96.360 g) and the lowest in Kolaroa (74.830 g). All these studies recommend that lac cultivation is possible at the southwestern part of Bangladesh.
Keywords: Lac sticks, raw lac, shellac, turi
yahoo.com