Inoculation strategies for agarwood-producing species in Asia: A systematic review

Agarwood is a highly valued non-timber product naturally grown in South and Southeast Asian countries and is a valuable ingredient of incense, perfume, and medicines. It is a highly protected tree species and a lucrative investment for cultivation and production due to its high price. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the different inoculation strategies and examined the available agarwood-producing species in the literature. The published articles were extracted from the Web of Science database of the initial search of 184 records. Articles were screened according to the title, abstract and full text. A total of 37 eligible articles were qualified for review. Data extracted were synthesized and analyzed by vote counting, frequency count, and percentages, as well as figures and tables. Results revealed that the oldest article in the review was from 2005, and the most recent article was from 2022. China was the highest number of publications as of 2022. Among agarwood-producing species, Aquilaria sinenses was the widely utilized specimen for agarwood experiments, while Aquilaria malaccensis was the country-diverse species in the review. Further, fungal inoculation was the most widely used as agarwood inoculation strategy. Finally, this review highlighted the need for further agarwood studies.