Dr. Upul Subasinghe and his research team managed to take Walla patta (Gyrinops walla) to the international community through some scientific publications on the research findings. Up to now, two full papers were published in two reputed scientific journals and those can be viewed by the following links.
1. Title: "Agarwood type resin from Gyrinops walla: A new discovery"
2. Title "Agarwood resin production and resin quality of Gyrinops walla"
In addition to that Dr. Subasinghe presented a paper on "Agarwood resin production of Gyrinops walla" at the International Scientific Symposium held in the University Putra Malaysia from 4 to 7 September 2013. The abstract of that presentation is given below.
Gyrinops
walla, a member of the agarwood family
Thymelaeaceae is recorded in the wet zone of Sri Lanka has not been previously
studied to identify its ability of producing agarwood. Therefore the present
study was the first ever to conduct to identify the production of agarwood resins
in G. walla and its resin quality.
Three distinctive areas of the low country
wet zone of Sri Lanka were selected for this study and 22 G. walla trees were used for sample collection. Since there were no
artificial resin induction methods applied earlier, all selected trees had
natural wounds occurred sometime before the sample collection due to natural injuries.
The dark coloured tissues of the affected areas were collected without felling
the trees and the resins were extracted by a solvent extraction method. The
diameter and height of the sampled trees were measured and the geographical
positions were also recorded. The extracted resins were further analysed by
using gas chromatography technique to identify the different compounds and to compare
those compounds with that of selected Aquilaria
species.
Dr. Subasinghe presenting his research findings at the Malaysian Symposium
