Spices and Condiments (1+1)

Cultivation land preparation and sowing

Propagation
Celery can be grown from seeds, by raising the seedlings in nursery beds. The seeds are quite small. An ounce contains about 70,000 seeds. The germination rate of seeds is about 50%.
A seed rate of 1.5 kg per hectare is sufficient. The seeds are sown in boxes and covered with thin layers of soil and FYM mixture. The seedlings are ready for transplanting when they are about 10 cm tall (60-70 days after sowing).

Tissue culture
The major breakthrough in tissue culture research is the encapsulation of somatic embryos from hypocotyl segments, thus leading to the production of artificial celery seeds.

Land preparation
The land is brought to a fine tilth and laid into plots of convenient sizes for irrigation. It is preferable to mix with the soil 10-20 tonnes of FYM/ha during the last ploughing.

Sowing/transplanting
When it is grown as a garden crop on the hills, the seeds are sown in March-April. The seedlings are transplanted in May and the crop is ready for harvest in November. In the plains, the seedlings preferably brought from the hills are transplanted in September-October and the crop is ready within three months.
In the plains, the seeds are generally sown from the middle of September to October and the transplanting of seedlings, 30 cm apart in rows spaced at 30-45 cm, is carried out in January. It is also grown as a directly seeded crop, on a smaller scale in Amritsar District.
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