Agro Techniques of Medicinal Plants

Book excerpt: Medicines are the second most essential requisite after food for mankind. For medicines, medicinal plants are the important sources of raw drugs. Therefore, the demand on plant based therapeutics has increased many fold in both developing and developed countries due to the growing recognition that they are natural products, being non-narcotic, having no side effects, easily available at affordable prices. Due to hug demand of plant-based crude drugs throughout the world, today urgent need to domesticate or cultivate the medicinal plants in large scale to fulfill the unexpected demand. But due to lack of systematic information on cultivation of medicinal crops at one place, growers are not ready to adopt such practices in their agrosystem. Changing herbal market scenario rapidly and expanding local and global market and immense export potential to Europe, America and other Western Countries has opened up a new prospective field for Indian agriculture. To fully make use of this emerging demands world wide appropriate knowledge regarding their value addition, processing, market potential (export/import) of crude drugs, adulterants and substitutions and crude drugs and standardization and quality control is of utmost important. This unique book ventures to probe into this very important area covering almost the entire gamut of the burning issues relating to medicinal plants. The export of crude (herbal) drugs is gaining strength due to its inherent advantage coupled with the proliberalization. This invaluable book consisting of 11 chapters contributed every aspects related to the cultivation of medicinal plants viz. Nursery technology, Biofertilizers and biological pest control, Organic farming, Agro technique (40 commercial important medicinal plants), Harvesting technology and value addiction, Adulterants and substitutions, Market potential (export/import), Standardization and quality control, Legistration and policy, Sustainable conservation and development strategies. This book is a ready manual and information database for policy makers, administrators, academia, exporters, extension workers, manufacturers, growers and general readers interested in medicinal plants.