Cultivate Stevia rebaudiana: An Alternative for Table Sugar

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) is a natural perennial medicinal herb that was basically originated from Uruguay. Now it has been broadly cultivated in USA, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and South East Asian countries. It is known for its low calorie sweetener properties. In the whole world, more than 180 species of the Stevia plants are found but, only Stevia rebaudiana gives the sweetest essence. It is due to the fact that the leaves of this plant accumulate around eight sweet diterpene glycosides (Soejarto et al., 1983). The crude Stevia leaves and its powder is 10-15 times sweeter than sucrose (Crammer and Ikan, 1986).

Natural sugar obtained from the leaves of this plant is said to be better alternative to table sugar. This can be a boon for the diabetic patients. It is a good alternative to sweetener agents i.e. Saccharine, Aspartum, etc. The plant is also useful for obtaining gibberellic acid from a mutant fungus called Gibberella fujikuroi.

Steviocide obtained from Stevia is remains stagnant even at the temperature of 100°C and 3-9 pH. There are two basic compounds Steviocide and Reboudicide found in the leaves which are capable of controlling insulin. Seeds are not much capable of self germination therefore; the plant is grown in nurseries using vegetative propagation techniques (15 cm branches). The best time for the cutting and implanting the material is February to March. Paclobutazol can be applied on cuttings for early rooting in planting material. Rooted cuttings are transferred from nursery to the farm/ soil in the month of February- March. These are placed at the distance of 25 x 25 cm.

Almost 30000 cuttings can be grown in an acre farm. Cultivation of Stevia requires maximum irrigation. In summer, the farm should be irrigated in an interval of every two days. Weeds can be removed after one month from the day of planting followed by every fifteen days. Generally the plant remains diseases free but some time patches are seen on leaves due to Boron insufficiency.

Commercially, leaves are important therefore flowers are removed from the tip so that plant grows maximum to its lateral. Flowers are plucked at the interval of 30-45-60-75 and 85 days. General Stevia starts flowering after 40 days of planting. A 3 month old plant is ready for the first cutting. Plants are cut from the part 5-8 cm above soil so that the little cut part starts growing. After the first cutting, the re-cutting is done after 90 days. In all, there will be 4 cuttings a year.

Every year one can get 2500kg dry leaves from an acre farm.

This article is Co-Authored by Dr Anshu Shrivastava and Devang Patel of Abhumka Herbal Pvt Ltd., Ahmedabad- India.

Reference

Soejarto, D.D., Compardre, C.M., Medon, P.J., Kamath, S.K. and Kinghorn, A.D.: Potential sweetening agents of plant origin II Field search for sweet tasting stevia species. Econ.Bot., 37(1): 71-75 (1983).

Crammer and Ikan, R.: Sweet glycosides from the stevia plant. Chem.Brit., 22: 915-917 (1986).