Guar - Cultivation

Cultivation

Guar means "cow food" in Hindi and Urdu. For best growth, the guar bean requires full sunshine, flashing rainfalls that are moderately frequent, and well-drained soil. However, it is extremely drought-tolerant and thrives in semiarid regions. Too much precipitation can cause the plant to become more leafy, thereby reducing the number of pods and/or seeds per pod and affecting the size and yield of seeds. The crop is sown after the first rains in July and harvested in late October. It is grown principally in north-western India and Pakistan with smaller crops grown in the semiarid areas of the high plains of Texas in the USA, Australia and Africa. The most important growing area centres on Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India where demand for guar for fracking produced an agricultural boom as of 2012.

Currently, India and Pakistan are the main producers of cluster bean, accounting for 80% production of the world's total, while Thar, Punjab Dry Areas in Pakistan and Rajasthan occupies the largest area (82.1%) under guar cultivation in India. In addition to its cultivation in India and Pakistan, the crop is also grown as a cash crop in other parts of the world (Pathak et al. 2010). Several commercial growers have converted their crops to guar production to support the increasing demand for guar and other organic crops in the United States.

Varieties: Pusa Naubahar and Pusa Sadabahar. Seeds at the rate of 30 kilograms/hectare (9–11 lb/acre) are planted at a spacing of 45-60 x 20–30 cm (18–24 x 8–12 in) in February–March and June–July. During rainy season, the seeds are sown 2–3 cm (~1 in) deep on ridges and in furrows during summer months. FYM is applied at the rate of 25 tonnes/ha (11.1 tons/acre). N, P2O5 and K2O recommendation for the crop is 20:60:80 kg/ha (18:53:71 lb/acre). Average yield is 5 to 6 tonnes/ha (2.2–2.6 tons/acre). Meager information is available for genetic variability in clusterbean addressing the qualitative traits (Pathak et al. 2011)