A Note on Arrow Root in the Salur Agency.

Abstract

Indian arrow root, Curcuma angustifolia Telugu Palagunda is a wild plant growing in several parts of the Vizagapatam District. The starch pre-pared from the mature rhizomes is used for making milk puddings (Pala Munjalu) and it is usually prescribed as a diet for invalids. It is used as a diet during dysentry for its easily digestible qualities. The Agency taluqs of Pottanghi, Padwa, Jeypore and Nowrangapur of the Old Vizagapatam District are the chief places where it is extensively grown. The cultivation of this crop, in the sense of regular planting, interculturing and subsequent harvesting, is not regularly done in these tracts. It grows more or less wild in several blocks of waste jungle land, specially near hill streams. It thri-ves usually at an elevation of over 1500 feet where the soils are very rich virgin, red sandy loams. Because of its free natural growth in the hills whose elevation is usually about 1500 feet and where annual rainfall ex-ceeds well over 50 inches and because of its abundance near water cour-ses, one has to conclude that it requires a very rich loamy soil with plentiful water supply and a fairly cool atmosphere. Attempts will have to be made to see whether it grows well in the plains where water supply is abundant and the soil is fertile.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.002227

Pages

442 - 443

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords