Cultivation
Ecuador supplies 95 percent or more of commercial balsa. In recent years, about 60 percent of the balsa has been plantation grown in densely packed patches of around 1000 trees per hectare (compared to about two to three per hectare in nature). It is evergreen, or dry-season deciduous if the dry season is long, with large (30–50 cm/12–20 in) weakly palmately lobed leaves. Trees are classified as hardwood because of the shape of their leaves, so balsa, with its large, broad leaves is classified as hardwood despite being very soft. It is the softest commercial hardwood. The trees are harvested after six to 10 years of growth. The name balsa comes from the Portuguese word for "raft".
Read more about this topic: Ochroma Pyramidale
Famous quotes containing the word cultivation:
“We are on a mission: we are called to the cultivation of the earth.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (17721801)
“If the minds of women were enlightened and improved, the domestic circle would be more frequently refreshed by intelligent conversation, a means of edification now deplorably neglected, for want of that cultivation which these intellectual advantages would confer.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (17921873)
“Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.”
—James Baldwin (19241987)