Non Timber Forest Produce Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Hides and skins are turned into leather by treatment with tannins.

Tannins are polyphenols that bind to the collagen proteins of the hide, making it durable, flexible and resistant to decay. Vegetable tanning uses tannins from barks, fruits and galls such as babul bark, myrobalan (harda) and wattle.

Gums, resins and oleoresins are other forest products used as adhesives, varnishes and in turpentine and rosin manufacture, not for tanning.

Answer: B

Bombax ceiba yields Indian kapok.

Bombax ceiba, the red silk cotton tree (semal), bears fruits filled with soft, silky floss attached to the seeds. This floss, called Indian kapok or semal cotton, is used to stuff pillows, mattresses and life jackets.

Coir comes from coconut husk, brush fibres from palms such as palmyra, and a strong bast fibre is not semal's product.

Semal is a large deciduous tree with red flowers that appear when the tree is leafless in late winter, and it is common in the forests of Madhya Pradesh.

Answer: B

The Van Dhan Yojana was launched in 2018.

The Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana was launched on 14 April 2018 at Bijapur, Chhattisgarh, under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED. It sets up Van Dhan Vikas Kendras where tribal gatherers process and market minor forest produce.

2017, 2019 and 2020 are not the launch year.

Under the scheme, groups of about 300 tribal gatherers form a Van Dhan Vikas Kendra, receive training and working capital, and add value to produce such as tamarind, mahua, honey and lac before selling it, so that more of the final price reaches the gatherers.

Answer: D

The common phenolic components of hydrolysable tannins are all of the above.

Hydrolysable tannins are esters of a sugar (usually glucose) with phenolic acids. On hydrolysis they give gallic acid (gallotannins), its dimer digallic acid, and ellagic acid (ellagitannins). Myrobalan and oak galls are rich sources.

Since gallic, digallic and ellagic acids are all components, choosing only one of them would be incomplete.

Answer: C

Resins with a high percentage of essential oils are oleoresins.

Oleoresins are mixtures of resin and essential (volatile) oil. Pine oleoresin, tapped from chir pine, is distilled to separate turpentine oil from rosin.

Gum resins are mixtures of gum and resin, such as guggul. Hard resins such as copal contain little essential oil. Rosin is the solid residue left after the volatile oil has been distilled off, so it has almost none.

Answer: A

Tendu leaves are also called bidi leaves.

The leaves of the tendu tree, Diospyros melanoxylon, are used to wrap tobacco in bidis. Tendu leaf collection is one of the most important minor forest produce activities in central India, and Madhya Pradesh is the largest producer.

Gum, betel and tejpatta leaves are different products: betel leaves come from the climber Piper betle, and tejpatta (Indian bay leaf) from Cinnamomum tamala.

Answer: B

Vetiver oil comes from the root.

Vetiver, Chrysopogon zizanioides (khus), is a tufted grass whose dense, fragrant roots are steam-distilled to give an essential oil used in perfumery and in cooling preparations. The roots are also woven into khus mats and screens.

The stem, flower and leaves are not the source of the oil; the leaves are used as fodder and thatch, and the plant is grown on slopes to control erosion.

Answer: A

Bidi leaves come from Diospyros melanoxylon, the tendu tree.

Tendu leaves are collected in summer, dried and used to roll tobacco into bidis. Their collection and trade, managed in Madhya Pradesh through cooperative societies, are a major source of income for forest-dwelling people.

Acacia nilotica is babul, a source of gum and tannin; Populus deltoides is poplar, a plantation timber; Pongamia pinnata is karanj, whose seeds give an oil.

Answer: B

The rill method was developed at Dehradun.

The rill method of tapping chir pine (Pinus roxburghii) for oleoresin, in which shallow V-shaped channels are cut into the bark instead of deep wounds into the wood, was developed at the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. It does less damage to the tree than the older cup-and-lip method and became the standard tapping method in India.

Jhansi, Jodhpur and Solan host other research institutes, for grassland, arid zone and horticulture or forestry work, but not this development.

Answer: C

The country with the richest bamboo genetic resources is China.

China has the largest number of bamboo species and genera in the world, around 500 species in about 40 genera, and is the main centre of bamboo diversity in Asia. India is second, with about 125 indigenous and several introduced species, and has the largest area under bamboo.

Brazil has many species in South America but fewer than China, and the USA has only a handful of native bamboos.