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Guargum, The Guar legume Plant is extremely drought resistant and thrives in semi arid regions where most plants perish. Guar grows best in sandy soils, areas of West, North West India and Parts of Pakistan are the ideal places for its farming. However with the latest technologies in the agriculture, it is now a days grown in the many states of India. Jodhpur City in the north western state of Rajasthan in India is the most important and ideal processing center for Guargum and contributes about 40 % of the worlds' Guargum supply.
The guar plant 'Cyamopsis Tetragonalobus' is an annual plant. The legume is an important source of nutrition to animals and humans. Guar requires reasonably warm weather and a growing season of 14-16 weeks. It needs moderate intermittent rainfall with lot of sunshine. Too much precipitation can cause the plant to become more leafy there by reducing the number of pods and / or the number of seeds per pod which affects the size and yield of seeds. The crop is generally sown after the monsoon rainfall in July/ early august and is harvested in late October / November. The guar is natural rain fed crop and the total size of guar crop varies from year to year depending upon the monsoon rainfall.Once upon a time, Guar was used as a protein rich cattle feed in India, The tender Green guar in India is still used as a vegetable and cattle feed. A severe locust bean gum shortage just after the second world war adversely affected the paper and textile industries. At that time, the Guargum was found to be the most suitable substitute for scarce locust bean gum. Guar regenerates soil nitrogen and the endosperm of guar seed is an important hydrocolloid widely used in many industries. As on date, It gains popularity of a star performer on the industrial stage.The technology of guargum extraction was commercialized in 1953 in USA and in India it is operative since 1963 onwards. After harvesting when the pods become dry through sunlight, they are beaten off and during the process, the seeds come out of them. |
