How To Grow Vetiver Grass At Home, Simple And Easy?

Vetiver is a family of Poaceae, most closely relate to lemongrass or rice. Traditionally, our society dries its roots to be use as fragrances for storage, such as wardrobes. The fragrant aroma comes from the root part, and how to grow vetiver grass at home? The characteristics or the morphology of Vetiver will be described here.

Vetiver is widely cultivate in Indonesia, China, and Haiti, as the world's major producer. Vetiver oil processing was introduce to Haiti in the 1940s by Lucien Ganot of France. Processing essential oils using steam, Haiti and Reunion produce the best Vetiver oil, and followed from Java. These commodities then marketed to the United States, Europe, India, and Japan as major consumers of Vetiver oil.

How To Grow Vetiver Grass At Your Home?

According to the history of its development, this plant originated in India, species Chrysopogon Zizanioides widely cultivated in the tropics. The largest producers of Vetiver are Haiti, India, Indonesia, and Reunion. To see how the characteristics of this plant, the following morphology of Vetiver explained for cultivation reference:

1. Vetiver plants can grow as high as 150 centimeters and form clumps. Feature stems look tall and leaves long, thin, and slightly stiff, and Vetiver flowers are brownish. Stems look straight and stiff, can survive in deep puddles.
2. Vetiver plant roots are neat and very strong, roots can grow 3 to 4 meters in the first year. Roots do not have stolons or rhizomes, are very tolerant of drought and can help to protect the soil from cell erosion.
3. The leaves can reach up to 150 centimeters long and 8 millimeters wide. The length of panicle (multi-cluster flowers) is 15 to 30 centimeters long, branched with a length of 25 to 50 millimeters. Grain looks paired and there are three stamens.

How to grow vetiver grass at your home? The most commonly used Vetiver cultivation is sterile, the plant does not produce fertile seeds, as the seeds propagate by themselves. This plant is not invasive and easily controlled by fencing on the land. But a vetiver that thrives can become invasive, and almost all plant propagated vegetatively.

Vetiver cultivation is plant in long and tidy rows, this is intend to make harvesting easier. The soil should wet, the trench depth about 15 to 20 centimeters. Setting up irrigation systems is highly recommend for the first few months after planting.

This plant prefers a slightly sandy clay. Plants on the ground somewhat skewed to avoid puddles in case of excess water or inundated. Watering should be monitor to avoid puddles that would inhibit the growth of young plants. But in adult plants, Vetiver thrives in stagnant water, and keep the soil pH between 3.3 and 12.5. By knowing the morphology of Vetiver, cultivation of plants will become easier.

Reference

• Field Evaluation of Vetiver Grass as a Barrier against Formosan Subterranean Termites (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae). Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences, 2012.
• The Vetiver System for Soil and Water Conservation. By Greenfield, John C, 2008.
• Chrysopogon Zizanioides, image courtesy of wikimedia commons.