Lavender farming in India

Dr Shekhar C. Mande, Director General, CSIR and Secretary, DSIR, visited the CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine’s (CSIR-IIIM) Branch Lab in Srinagar and Interacted with the women self-help groups and entrepreneurs associated with Lavender farming.

About Lavender

• Lavender flowering plant is a native of Europe and the Mediterranean region. It was discovered around 2,500 years ago.

• It gets a mention in the Bible in the ‘Song of Solomon’.

• The Lavender oil is used in perfumery. And this is the reason why today it’s cultivated across many continents.

• In India, the lavender crop is cultivated in low rainfall regions and on the slopes of hills of Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and now it is also grown in Jammu-Kashmir.

• It is a temperate plant and does well only in those areas, which have cold winter and cool summer. It is resistant to frost and drought.

• The oil quality and yield depends upon several factors, particularly soil and climatic conditions under which the plant is cultivated.