Monday, August 25, 2008

Bitter Gourd



Bitter Gourd (Mormodica charantia) also popularly known as Karela seen trained on a trellis at Padval farms. Low quality video. click play to watch

Photos and content by Pritham 'Heavy metal farmer' denzil dsouza

2 comments:

  1. Hello,

    I have tried numerous times without any success to germinate bitter gourd seeds. Soaked them overnight, nicked the exterior but absolutely no luck.

    Is this typical of bitter gourd?

    Many thanks
    AG

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  2. Pritham 'MetalFarmer' D'SouzaJuly 16, 2009 at 10:25 PM

    bitter gourds along with snake gourds are the toughest when it comes to germination. and its also takes the longest time. upto 10 days to germinate!
    soaking overnight is good, but not very effective. many people soak them in curds, lassi overnight. and it works much better. the reason is simple. the milk, curds contain bacteria which breaks the dormancy of the seeds.
    i usually spray bacteria solution when the seeds are sowed, & they germinate within 5 days.

    also most imp is, the quality of the seeds. old seeds wont germinate. they generally have viability of less than 4 to 6 months. so immediately after seeds are extracted, they can be kept for a period of 3 months. beyond which they might not germinate.

    cheers

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