Agarwood, Fragrance of Infection

Agarwood for aromatic material.

Can be imagined if one part of the body was injured and then infected. The body will defend itself from infection. The body will be producing leukocytes / white blood cells. The loss of the battle between leukocytes and infectious agents is pus. Pus becomes something disgusting because it becomes a marker of infectious disease. Another case the pus of Aquilaria and Gyrinops that smell nice. The genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops are often hurt to infect and dispel compounds of fragrant. Gaharu/Agarwood, aroma of pus of fragrant and valuable trees.

Agarwood Plant
Many people know gaharu, even hunting him. Fragrant aroma is the attraction. Gaharu oil is used as a perfume, drugs, and cosmetics. Typical, strong, and durable fragrance that makes gaharu side by side with sandalwood from Santalum album. Gaharu hunters willing to go outside the forest in search of gaharu rotting and festering that later can be exchanged for a lot of money.

One day I visit in several places in Indonesia which is famous as a producer of gaharu, one of them in South Sumatra. There I met with gaharu oil cultivators. He tells about the potential business of gaharu oil that penetrates the European market and Middle East. Hundreds of millions rupiahs can be earned after self-made aloes.

Gaharu plants consist of several species. Gaharu comes from the Aquilaria genus and one of its species is A. malaccensis of about 16 species. Gaharu grows in tropical rainforest areas, but it is increasingly difficult to find due to hunting. Often hunters sporadically chop down gaharu woods without recognizing whether they contain gaharu or not. This is the act of causing gaharu plants increasingly rare because there is a fault.

Oil of Gaharu.

Agarwood Oil
Naturally, gaharu oil is the rest of the plant self-defense mechanism of infection. Gaharu if it is naturally wound (broken, scratched) and then infested by fungal spores/fungus like; Acremonium sp., Cylindrocarpon sp., Fusarium nivale, Fusarium solani, Fusarium fusariodes, Fusarium roseum, Fusarium lateritium and Chepalosporium sp. Mushroom spores will then grow into a mycelium that will continue to infect the gaharu body. Agarwood will issue a phytoalexin compound that serves to ward off the organism pathogen.

Fungus and bacteria for gaharu infected ((https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.01286/full))

If gaharu fails to fight infections from the mushrooms slowly he will die. If gaharu is able to defend itself then it will survive and leave a scar that has healed. The stems are thickened, and there are bulges and grooves are signs of the tree contains gaharu and can be harvested.

Man does not lose sight of how to create artificial gaharu. Gaharu tree trunks will be injured with a hollowed out drill with a drill and injected spores of the fungus to infect. With this artificial infection, gaharu can predict the success rate and the harvest time. But Mr. Muhamad said as gaharu businessman said "good quality gaharu forest than the artificial".

The rise of gaharu search into this plant is increasingly rare in its existence. In the international conventions on the trade of endangered species, the gaharu A. malaccensis plant is included in the Appendix II list. This list refers in order to limit its trade. Gaharu may be one of the world's tertiary plants, already infected, once healed and sought and cut down. Indeed if you see the other side, the aroma of fragrance must infect.