Santalum austrocaledonicum

Cultivation Details

The plant grows naturally in warm to hot lowland areas in the tropics at elevations up to 800 metres, but usually below 300 metres^[1]. It prefers a mean annual temperature in the range 23 - 27°c^[1]. It is found in areas where the mean annual rainfall is in the range 1,250 - 1,750mm (though it can tolerate 800 - 2,500mm), and there is a distinct dry season of 3 - 5 months^[1]. Requires a position in full sun or bright shade^[1]. Requires a light to medium, well-drained soil^[1]. Prefers a well drained neutral to slightly alkaline soil. Tolerates poor, shallow soils^[1]. It grows more quickly in fertile soils but is then more at risk of being shaded out by taller, faster growing trees^[1]. Prefers a circumneutral soil with a pH of pH 6.1 - 7.4, but can tolerate 4 - 7.4^[1]. The plant has a capacity for invasiveness in disturbed places, but this is rarely considered a problem^[1]. A semi-parasitic plant, obtaining some of its nutriment from the roots of other plants^[2]. The plant has green leaves containing chlorophyll, and is thus able to photosynthesize - it relies on host plants only for water and soil nutrients, not for sugars, which it can produce itself ^[3]. In a natural situation, the plant seems to rely on nitrogen fixing trees such as Acacia and Casuarina, though it is known to parasitize many other legumes, shrubs, herbs and grasses^[3]. It normally has more than one host at a time^[3]. Acacia spirorbis makes a good long-term host plant under both natural conditions and in plantations. For ultramafic soils, other good nitrogen-fixing host species are Casuarina collina and Gymnostoma deplancheana^[1]. A fairly slow-growing plant, increasing in height by about 30 - 70cm per year^[1]. Under good conditions plants begin fruiting from an early age, typically about 3 - 4 years, but heavy fruiting may take 7 - 10 years^[1]. The species can produce substantial quantities of its valuable heartwood on a rotation of about 25 - 40 years^[1]. Plants generally respond well to coppicing^[1]. Plants are capable of producing root suckers - following harvesting, clumps of suckers may regenerate in a circular pattern several meters away from the original stump^[1]. Because sandalwood is hemiparasitic and requires one or more host plants, intercropping is not only possible, but necessary^[1].