Impact of Seed Rhizome Size on Growth and Yield of Turmeric

In India, spices occupy an important place among the agro products exported. Spices are the low volume and high value crop. Spices can improve the palatability and appeal of dull diets and they have anti-bacterial and preservative action. Spices are not only used for culinary purpose, most of the spice crops are used as a medicine as they posses high medicinal value. Curcuma longa known as yellow turmeric (Manjal in Tamil) is an important, sacred and ancient spice of India. It is a rhizomatous herbaceous plant belonging to the family Zingeberaceae. Curcumin is the pigment that lends the bright stunning yellow colour to turmeric which can be used as a dye. Because of its brilliant yellow colour, it is also known as “Indian saffron”. It is a sterile triploid and it is vegetatively propagated by dibbling the seed rhizomes [1]. Rhizome is of two types’ viz., mother rhizomes and finger rhizomes also known as daughter rhizomes. The traditional method of propagation using 15g mother or seed rhizomes. Traditional method requires the seed rate of 2000-2500 kg ha-1 of rhizomes if it is sown as a sole crop. It makes the cultivation expensive for large scale production. The cost of planting material amounts to 50% of crop production in turmeric. Since rhizome multiplication is slow and maintenance of planting material is expensive, there is a need to review the effect of size of seed rhizomes on growth and yield of turmeric to reduce the cost of cultivation.