Kasthurimanjal-Harvest and storage

Kasthurimanjal matures in seven months. Drying up of leaves is the indication of maturity.

Harvest the crop by digging out the rhizomes. Care should be taken to avoid damage to rhizomes. After harvest, the dried leaves and roots are removed.

The cleaned rhizomes are either marketed fresh or dried and stored. The recovery of dry rhizome will be around 27 per cent.

The rhizome is thinly sliced and steam distilled for 3-4 hours for extracting the essential oil. Oil recovery is 0.33 per cent on fresh weight basis and 1.05 per cent on dry weight basis.