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Climatic Requirement

Climatic Requirement: 

Large cardamom is a shade-loving plant. Its natural habitat is humid subtropical, semi-evergreen forests on steep hills of eastern sub-Himalayan region. The crop is at present grown in some relatively drier shadow areas also where the productivity is much low. The tracts receive a well-distributed rainfall spread around 200 days with a total of about 3,000-3,500mm/year. The weather remains mostly cloudy and foggy during monsoon season. It is grown up to 1,000-2,000 m above mean sea level. It is normally cultivated in lower altitudes of cooler areas (near to the snow-line) and higher altitudes of warmer areas. During severe winter its plants remain dormant and withstand up to 2OC, but the frosts and hailstorms are injurious. The flower bud differentiation occur from August in lower altitudes to October in higher altitudes. The initiation of flower buds occur pre-winter on lower elevations but further development takes place only after the lapse of cold period in early-March. On the other hand, in higher elevations, the flower-bud initiation and development occurs post-winter in April-May resulting in late flowering by at least 2-3 months compared to plants grown at lower elevations. The continuous rain during flowering is detrimental as it hampers foraging activity of the pollinating bees, affecting the sensitive flowers and resulting in poor capsule setting and barren spikes.