Presentation on,

Production Technology of Safed Musli

By,SHIVANAND M R

Jr. MSc. UHS11PGM143

Introduction• Peeled and dried tubers of chlorophytum

borivilianum (Chloros- Green, Phytum- Plant) , popularly known as Safed Musli, which belongs to family liliaceae, is considered a wonder drug in Indian systems of medicine due to its aphrodisiac and natural sex tonic properties.

• Tubers are white, and hence it is called as safed musli.

• Due to its therapeautic importance, is used in more than 100 Ayurvedic preparations.

• The world demand for Safed musli root is over 50,000 tons and in India 2500 tons every year, which is much higher than the present production.

• The decreasing supply from the natural sources and increased demand in national and international markets and the resulting increase in prices has prompted domestication and cultivation.

• The roots of Safed musli fetches an attractive market price, at present Rs. 900-1200/ kg of dry roots.

Origin• Tropical and subtropical Africa are the

probable centre of origin of the genus, where about 85% of the species are found.

• The origin of safed musli can be traced back in the oldest mountain ranges of the Indian continent, the Aravalis from where it spreads to the near-by areas of the sub continent.

• Indian Subcontinent is the centre of origin.

Vernacular Names

• Musali (Sanskrit)• Safed Musli(Hindi)• Tiravanticam (Tamil)• Dravanti (Kannada)

Economic Part : TubersChemical content: Saponins

Distribution• It is widely distributed in India but not in other

countries except Myanmar and China.• In India, it is cultivated in parts of Gujarat,

Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka and is being grown on an area more than 400 hectares for its tuberous roots (Kothari and Singh, 2004).

• Presently, the roots fetch an attractive price, which is decided by the size of the tubers and its physical appearance.

Major Chemical Constituents

• Carbohydrates - 42%, • Protein 80 - 90%, • Fibres 3 - 4%, • Saponins 2 - 17% and• Alkaloids 15 - 25%. (Bordia et al., 1995).• Primarily Saponins and alkaloids impart medicinal

value.

Uses of Safed Musli

1. As a principal ingredient in Ayurvedic, Unani and Allopathy application

2. As an aphrodisiac agent and Vitalizer

3. As a general sex tonic

4. As a curative for pre-natal and post-natal problems in

women and useful for brain development in children.

5. As an effective safe alternative to Viagra

6. Acts as a restorative for immunity improvement

7. As a remedy for diabetes

8. As a curative for physical weakness and many illness

9. As a remedy for arthritis

10. Used for increasing general body immunity11. It has spermatogenic property and helpful in

curing impotency as they are rich in glucosides

Botany• The genus Chlorophytum includes about 300 species, which

are distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical parts of the world.

• The somatic chromosome number is 2n = 16• Thirteen species of Chlorophytum have been reported from

India (Shariff and Chennaveeraiah, 1972).• Chlorophytum borivilianum produces the highest yield and

highest saponin content (Shariff and Chennaveeraiah, 1972).

• Other important indigenous species are : C. arundinaceum,C. tuberosum, C. laxum, C. attenuatum, C.

malabaricum and C. breviscapum .

Different Species of Chlorophytum and theirDistribution

Species Distribution

1. C. borivilianum Dangs Forests (Gujarat), Aravali hills

2. C. arundinaceum All districts of Chhota Nagpur, Vindhya, Satpura and Aravali hills, parts of central India, Tarai region of North-East Himalayas in Assam, West Bengal and Bihar

3. C. attenuatum Western Ghats, Southwards to Coimbatore, West Peninsula

4. C. axum Katki hills, Belgaum, Dharwar, North and South Kanara, Deccan Peninsula in India.

5. C. tuberosum Parts of Konkan to Travancore in Kerala, Eastern Himalaya

6. C. breviscapum Bihar and West Bengal, Sikkim, Himalaya, Belgaum and South Peninsula

• Chlorophytum borivilianum is a small perennial herb with a full crown of radical leaves appearing over the ground.

• Its root tubers are fleshy, fascicled and directly originates from the stem disc devoid of any fibrous structure.

• They are cylindrical and 5 -20 in number.• It has 6 -13 radical leaves spirally imbricate at the

base, sessile in nature, linear or ovate with acute apex and slightly narrowed at the base.

• The leaves spread horizontally, with smooth surfaces, wavy margins and parallel venation.

Typical Safed Musli Plant

• Flowers of Chlorophytum are small, white, bracteate, pedicillate, zygomorphic, usually arranged in alternate clusters, each cluster comprising of 3 flowers.

• The flower clusters are dense on the upper part of the scape; bracts are linear, papery and purplish, 1.0 -10.5 cms long; pedicle whitish and 6 -10 mm long.

• It bears green to yellow coloured fruit which is almost equal in length and breadth.

• Seeds are endospermic, onion-like, black coloured and angular in shape.

Crop Improvement

• The work on collection and evaluation of germplasm were taken at AICRP Indore, CIMAP, Lucknow, Hyderabad and NRC on MAP at Boravi (Singh and Chauhan, 2003).

• Tremendous variability in growth, yield attributing characters and duration of crops were noted.

• Maximum variability was observed in tuber shape, size and colour.

• Tubers having blunt tips have better post harvest keeping quality than that of elongated tip.

• Kumar et al studied the influence of plant morphology on root yield in Safed Musli to identify morphological marker traits.

• Twenty seven germplasm lines were characterized for 4 morphological features (plant architecture, flowering nature, leaf margin and canopy shape), 7 yield attributing traits (canopy spread, leaf width, leaf length, number of leaves/plant, number of roots/plant, root length and root diameter) and root yield/plant.

• Genotypes with flowering ability showed significantly higher mean values for canopy spread and leaf length that are significantly correlated with root yield.

• So flowering nature can be utilized as morphological marker for large-scale screening of germplasm lines for yield in Safed Musli.

Crop Production Technology

Soil :• Since it is a tuber species, it needs a sandy loamy soil with

5.5-7.0 pH and rich in organic matter.• Heavy black soil is not suitable for cultivation.

Climate :• The vegetative growth and fleshy root development is

facilitated by warm and humid weather with sufficient amount of moisture during the growing period.

• Areas receiving 50-150cm annual rainfall, may be considered suitable for its cultivation.

Land Preparation Land preparation takes almost 2-3 months: Deep

Ploughing, Tillering is must to give land a better Pulverization and Dryness in the month of March and April.

At least twenty trollys of Cow dung manure should be mixed in the month of April or May.

Raised beds should be prepared in the end of Month May.

All the raised Beds should be well irrigated before sowing the planting Material.

IMPORTANCE OF RAISED BEDS

Raised beds should prepared to facilitate better drainage of excess water and healthy growth of roots

Size of these beds can be as per case and fecility.

Size of the bed should be 1.05m width and 45 cm height.

Two beds should divided by 45 cm furrows

Varieties

• Selections viz., RC-2, RC-16, RC-36, RC-20, RC-23, RC-37 and CT-l are found to be good in terms of yield and Saponin content.

• These varieties have been collected and maintained at RAU, Udaipur.

• The other varieties of Safed musli which are high yielding, insect, disease and fungus resistant are MDB -13 and MDB -14.

Propagation Safed musli is propagated through both seeds &

vegetative means i.e. fleshy root bearing shoot buds.By Seeds: The seeds are black in colour and with angular edges. It take

12-16 days to sprout. The seeds should be sown in a very well prepared seed bed

in the first or second week of June. The seedlings can be transplanted in the field during the

next Kharif season only at 30x15 cm spacing because the development of plants as well as roots by means of seeds in the first year is not vigorous enough as compared the vegetatively propagated plants.

By Vegetative Means: The sprouted seedlings should be collected from the

forest between 10 to 30 days after receipt of rains and transplanted in the field or fleshy root bunches should be taken out from the ground or storage place in mid of May.

The fleshy roots sprout from second week of May to second week of June.

The sprouted fleshy propagules should be planted in the field in first or second week of June, followed by irrigation.

The practice of planting on top of the ridges of 15-20 cm height at a row distance of 30x15 cm is found adequate for obtaining commercial yield.

It is estimated that 400-500 kg of seed tubers or nearly 30000-35000 fingers will be required for planting one acre land.

Micro propagation• The micro propagation of safed musli, has been

achieved on Murashige and Skoog's (MS) medium supplemented with 22.2 µM benzyl adenine using young shoot bases as explants.

• Shoots multiplied at a rate of four-fold every 3 weeks.

• All shoots rooted when transferred to MS medium with 3/4-strength inorganic and organic constituents and 9.8 µM Indole butyric acid and 67% of the micro propagated plants were successfully established in pots.

• Biradar, et al., 2004 studied the in vitro performance of different explants of safed musli during 2004-05 at the tissue culture laboratory of Horticulture Department, College of Agriculture,UAS Dharwad.

• Results observed in the study indicated that both stem disc and shoot base explants were relatively more efficient in terms of survival percentage (80% and 77.5%, respectively) compare to leaf base and tuber explants.

Micro propagation ofChlorophytum borivilianum in MS medium

Hardening of tissue culture raised plants in shade house

Manures and FertilizersMusli cultivation requires different kinds of fertilizers like FYM, chemical fertilizers, green manures and micro nutrients for better profit of the crop.

Farm Yard Manure (FYM):It is very essential as it enhances water holding capacity and fertility of soil.

10 to 15t/acreGreen Manures:

It improves the fertility of the soil. The ideal sources of green manure are Sesbania and Crotalaria.

• Kulmi, G. S. and Tyagi, S. K. Studied the response of safed musli varieties to organic nutrition in vertisols of Malwa Plateau of Madhya Pradesh.

• Results of two year study conducted during kharif seasons of 2002-03 and 2003-04 reveal that safed musli variety JM-405 grows well under organic nutrition as compared to MCB-412.

• However, higher IBCR ratio was obtained from application of Poultry Manure @ 5 t/ha combined either with the soil application of Azotobacter or vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae or Trichoderma viride @ 10 kg/ha than application of farmyard manure @ 40 t/ha.

Chemical Fertilizer :

About 20 kg N, 40 kg P2O5 and 20 kg K2O per acre is recommended.

Basal dose of fertilizer should be applied at the time of planting.

After 45 days of planting second dose should be applied.

• Chauhan et al., 2002. studied the influence of FYM and NPK fertilizers on growth and yield of safed musli production.

• Research revealed the application of FYM at 15 t/ha produced yield that was at par with the combined application of FYM 15 t/ha in combination NPK at either rates.

• The results suggest that safed musli can be grown organically without loss in productivity.

Micronutrients :

In case of zinc deficiency application of 10 kg ZnS04 is ideal for its growth.

For a tuber species like Safed musli an application of bone meal provides phosphorus and the necessary micronutrients.

Nutritional Deficiencies :

• Iron deficiency leads to Chlorosis. • Initially Chlorosis of young leaves followed by

gradual necrosis.

Control Measure: Spray ferrous Sulphate once in 2 months

Spacing :Tubers are planted on raised beds at a spacing of 30 cm

between the rows and 25 cm between the plants. Also, the spacing of 20 cmx20cm is suitable for its better growth.

Irrigation : Safed Musli is cultivated during the rainy season, as it

needs a regular supply of water even after the stage of fall of leaves.

Irrigation may be done after 10 to 15 days interval. A good drainage system is required to avoid water-

logging and to enable effective moisture-retention by the soil.

Drip irrigation is ideal for cultivation of Musli.

Inter Cropping :

Musli can be cultivated as-an inter crop with Mango, Teak, Neem, Amla and Sapota (Cliiku) etc.

It can also be intercropped with Papaya, Banana and maize.

Weeding :

Regular weeding is necessary for proper and healthy growth of the crop.

Two to three weeding-cum-hoeings are needed to keep the soil porous and free of weedy growth.

A matured Safed Musli plant

• Kothari, S. K. and Reddy, P. S. were studied the response of safed musli to methods of planting, spacing, harvesting age and cropping system.

• Yields of safed musli was improved by raised bed planting, compared to flat bed and ridge planting, respectively.

• Plant spacing had significant influence on safed musli yield. The maximum yield 995 kg ha-1 was recorded with 30x22.5 cm spacing and was found to be 20.9, 22.1 and 22.8% higher than 30x25, 30x27.5 and 30x30 cm, respectively.

• The results of time of harvest study indicate that after the drying of foliage there has been increase in tuber biomass. Crop harvested 33 weeks after planting in January produced 1490 kg.

• Intercropping was found to be an important agronomic practice that had the potential to improve the highest gross and net returns and benefit-cost ratio. Pigeon pea (early type) followed by black gram were the ideal crops for intercropping under semi arid tropics.

• Patel et al., studied the inter cropping in safed musli, and reported that safed musli as sole crop earned maximum profit.

• Among the five selected intercrops, safed musli-senna intercrop combination registered maximum net profit with 1:1.80 cost benefit ratio.

• Safed musli-bajra intercrop did not prove beneficiary effect on safed musli.

• Thus intercrop and shade condition does not help for the fasciculated root yield of safed musli.

Detopping :

It is one of the operation in cultivation of musli, the sprouted tubers grown and flower.

The inflorescence arise from the base of the plant should be removed to encourage the tuber bulking.

Plant Protection• Major pests : Leaf eating caterpillar and white grub• Major diseases : Leaf blight and red spot

Control Measures :1. To control leaf eating caterpillars, spray 0.2 per cent

metacid aqueous solution at fortnightly intervals.2. White grub can be easily controlled by the application of

Aldrin @ 25 kg per hectare at the time of last ploughing during land preparation.

3. Spray Bavistin solution @ 1 g/l at 25 days interval (2 times) to control the diseases.

Rotting of roots during storage can be controlled by treatment with Thiram and Captan at 4.0 grams per kg of roots.

Harvesting • The crop matures in about three months after planting. At

maturity, the leaves become yellowish and ultimately dry up from the collar part and fall down. Thus, the crop should be harvested when leaves have dried which take place in the month of September - October.

Post Leaf Fall : • After the leaf fall, the tubers should continue to be in the

ground. They should not be plucked, as changes occur internally in the tuber that will increase its value.

Digging : • Each tuber is to be delicately lifted with the prescribed

implements, to obtain maximum quantity of the tuber and to avoid any damage to the crown or disc of the tuber. Harvesting should be carried out in the month of March/April.

Roots at the time of Harvesting:

Cleaning of Tuber :• As the tuber is dug out from the soil, naturally it

contains a lot of mud. As such, the tuber has to be cleaned properly before it is peeled

Peeling :• After the separation of the material to be resown,

only tubers without a crown are to be peeled.• Peeling helps the tuber dry easily. Peeling is no

specialized task. It can easily be done with a knife without any loss of quality or quantity. A person can peel up to 5 kg per day.

Drying :• Once peeled, Musli should be dried of the moisture

content. It takes 7 days for Musli to dry.Grading :• The fully dried fingers of safed musli can be graded as

'A', 'B‘ and 'C' grades on the basis of its colour and size.Packing :• After drying, Musli must be packed in poly bags to

prevent entry of moisture. Yield :• On an average, 2000 kg of fleshy roots per hectare can

be obtained, which may yield up to 400-500 kg of dry safed musli.

• Upadhyay, et al., studied the effect of drying methods on quality parameters of safed musli root.

• The experiment consisted of 2 postharvest techniques, i.e. peeling and unpeeling, and subsequent 3 drying types, i.e. shade, solar and cabinet drying at 40-45 0C.

• The shade drying was the best method for safed musli roots.

• The unpeeled roots maintained better quality parameters than the peeled roots.

• Raghu et al., studied the effect of pre-treatments and drying methods on quality and saponin content of safed musli tubers.

• The drying methods had no significant effects on the recovery percentage.

• Hot air oven drying required a shorter duration (<48 h) than solar (48 h) and sun drying (64 h) for drying of safed musli tubers.

• Tubers pre-treated with KMS (2%) for 45 minutes and dried in a solar cabinet had the highest saponin content (3.93%).

Dried roots of Safed musli

Storage of Planting Material :• The harvested bunch of roots should be collected

with sand and heap in the shade.• The heap is stirred at 3-4 days interval for next 8 to

12 days and make the harvested bunch free from sand and mud by cleaning with clean water.

• Fleshy roots should be seperated from the bunch by hands.

• Ventilated racks are used to store musli tubers foe next year in controlled temperature of 25-310C and at RH of 50-65%.

Need for Cultivation

• Global demand for musli is necessiating the cultivation.

• As illustrated, Safed Musli is a precious medicinal plant with expanding demand in domestic and international market.

• Forest was the only source, which is fast depleting since over exploitation hence its cultivation is must.

References:• Alice Kurian, M., Asha Sankar., 2007, Medicinal Plants,

New India Publishing Agency: 246-251.• Manjunatha., Tyagi. and Srinivasan., 2004, Safed

Musli; A white Gold, Agrobios (India): 11-18.• Kumar, R. R.; Reddy, L. P.; Patel, R. P.; Rajput, D. K. and

Sastry, K. P., 2009, Influence of plant morphology on root yield in Safed Musli to identify morphological marker traits. Electronic J. Plant Breed., 1(2): 212-216.

• Biradar, M. S.; Angadi, S. G.; Mokashi, A. N.; Hosamani, R. M.; Bhat, S.and Hegde, L., 2001, In vitro performance of safed musli explants. Karnataka J. Agric. Sci., 24(3):369-370.

• Kulmi, G. S.and Tyagi, S. K., 2010, Response of safed musli varieties to organic nutrition in vertisols of Malwa Plateau of Madhya Pradesh. J. Med. Arom. Pl. Sci., 32(1): 58-60.

• Chauhan, H. S.; Aparbal Singh; Singh, H. P.; Singh, A. K.; Chattopadhyay, A.; Raj Kumari and Prasad, A.,2005, Influence of FYM and NPK fertilizers on growth and yield of safed musli production. J. Med. Arom. Pl. Sci.,27(2): 280-282.

• Kothari, S. K. and Reddy, P. S., 2009, Response of safed musli to methods of planting, spacing, harvesting age and cropping system. J. Med. Arom. Pl. Sci.,31(4): 302-307.

• Patel, D. H.; Patel, M. A.; Sriram, S. and Parmar, J. R., 2009, Inter cropping safed musli (Chlorophytum borivilianum). Int. J. Agric. Sci., 5(2): 595-596.

• Upadhyay, A.; Mishra, M.and D,wivedi, S. K., 2007, Effect of drying methods on quality parameters of safed musli root. J. Biomed., 2(3): 283-287.

• Raghu, B.; Laxminarayan Hegde; Rokhade, A. K.; Adiga, J. D. and Patil, P. B.,2006, Effect of pre-treatments and drying methods on quality and saponin content of safed musli tuers. J. Biomed., 1(1): 42-45.

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