 Climatic Conditions
Ginger grows in warm and humid climate. It is mainly cultivated in the tropics from sea level to an altitude of above 1500 MSL. Ginger thrives best in well drained soils like sandy or clay loam, red loam or lateritic loam. Friable loamy soil rich in humus is ideal.
Land Conditions
The land is ploughed 4-5 times to bring the soil to fine tilth. Weeds, stubbles, roots etc. are removed. Beds of about one metre width, 15 cm height and of convenient length are prepared at a spacing of 50 cm between beds. In case of irrigated crop, the ridges are formed 40 cm apart.
Weeding is done just before fertilizer application and mulching. Two to three weedings are required depending upon the intensity of weed growth. Proper drainage channels are to be provided to drain off stagnant water.
Ginger is commonly rotated with other crops such as tapioca, chillies, paddy, gingelly, ragi, ground nut, maize, vegetables, red gram, castor, etc. Ginger is also grown as intercrop in coconut, arecanut, coffee and orange plantations.
 Post Harvest
For making vegetable ginger, harvesting is done from 6th month onwards. The rhizomes are thoroughly washed in water twice or thrice and sun dried for a day. For preparing dry ginger, the produce is kept soaked in water overnight. The rhizomes are then rubbed well to clean them. After cleaning, the rhizomes are removed from the water and the outer skin is removed with bamboo splinters having pointed ends. While scraping, care must be taken not to rupture oleoresin cells lying just below the outer skin..
|
