kumbhika :

Floating plant Photograph by: Love Krittaya

Cultivation:

Found though much of the tropics and subtropics at elevations from sea level to more than 1,000 metres. The optimal growth temperature range for the plant is 22 - 30°c

Plants cannot tolerate frosts

A free-floating, aquatic plant, succeeding in full sun or partial shade

Requires a lime-free water with a pH preferably in the range 6.5 - 7

Plants can survive in a dwarf form if stranded in wet soil

Plants can spread rapidly in warm climates, where they can become invasive

They are considered to be noxious weeds in many areas

Like Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), this plant also blocks irrigation canals; provides a breeding ground for mosquitoes; and chokes fishery waters

The plant provides a useful cover for spawning fish

Propogation:

Seed - it needs to be kept moist. In nature, the seeds float in the water for a few days, after which they sink and germinate. The seedling appears at the surface in 5 days

Division of the new plants formed at the ends of stolons radiating out from the mother plant

Harvesting:

Mechanical control against P. stratiotes can be achieved in different ways - manual harvest to the net and at the fork from the shore, harvesting treadmill, harvest by harvester boat. This type of harvesting requires a piling on the bank followed by an evacuation by truck to another location or biomass will be left to rot. Given the speed of propagation of the water lettuce and the amount of biomass produced, this group of methods never allowed to fight effectively against an invasion by these species.

Kotakkal Ayurveda - Mother land of modern ayurveda

kumbhika - Pistia stratiotus Linn. - Araceae

kumbhika :

Cultivation:

Propogation:

Harvesting:

Medicinal Plants