Post-harvest profile of red gram - Agmarknet

species of Cajanus are known, differing in height, habit, time of maturity, colour, size andshape of pods and seeds. All these cultivated types belong to two categories:i) Cajanus cajan var. bicolor: This group includes late maturing varieties, having tall bushyplants and bear flowers at the end of the branches. The podsare relatively longer and contain 4-5 seeds.ii) Cajanus cajan var. flavus: This group includes early maturing varieties, having smallerplants and flowers at several points along the branches. Thepods are also shorter which bear 2-3 seeds.1.2 Importance:India alone accounted for about 81 percent of total world’s production in the year 2002and 90 percent of total world’s consumption of Red gram. The total pulse production of thecountry was 11.08 million tonnes in 2000-01 including Red gram (2.25 million tonnes).Generally, this crop is not grown as commercial crop and major portion of the produce isconsumed in the respective state itself. Every Red gram plant is a mini-fertilizer factory as thecrop has unique characteristics of restoring and maintaining soil fertility through fixingatmospheric nitrogen in symbiotic association with Rhizobium bacteria present in the rootnodules. Red gram crop is suitable for inter-cropping, with different crops (Cotton, Sorghum,Pearl millet, Green gram, Black gram, Maize, Soybean, Groundnut) for increasing productionand maintaining soil fertility.2.0 PRODUCTION2.1 Major producing countries in the world:Red gram isgrown throughout thetropical and subtropicalcountries of the worldespecially in SouthAsia, Eastern andSouthern Africa, LatinAmerica, Caribbeancountries and Australia.According to FAOstatistics, worldwideRed gram was grown inabout 4.16 millionhectares and itsproduction was 2.99million tonnes in 2002.India is the largestMajor Red gram producing countries during 2002(Percent to world production)3.25 81.492.602.6410.02IndiaMyanmarMalawiUgandaOthersproducer of Red gram accounting 81.49 percent of total production and 80.59 percent of totalarea of the world. Other major Red gram producing countries are Myanmar (10.02 percent),Malawi (2.64 percent) and Uganda (2.60 percent). The productivity is highest in Uganda (1000kg/ha) followed by Nepal (875kg/ha) and India (728 kg/ha).2