Andrographis (Andrographis paniculata) seeds, organic

hi angie, good work on the andrographis, it is going to do fine for you. hesitation after transplant is normal with these. side-dress with compost or give dilute fish emulsion and water occasionally. they will start growing, there’s a lot of summer left for them. r

water in with comfrey leaf tea or dilute fish emulsion.

Hi Linda, this note from you comes a day after we harvested 50% of our crop for herb use. Many of the plants were 8 inches tall, this is a short-statured plant. The medicine is extraordinarily concentrated–harvest before frost and tincture. richo

Hi Rebecca, Thanks for contacting. I had good results with the seeds we grew (and sold) last year and I too have a number of good plants I’m looking forward to planting to field if these morning frosts will ever move somewhere else. ANyhow, it is easy to know when to harvest the seeds and fatal to collect the pods too early. The upright pods (follicles) will become very rigid once ready–they cannot be harvested when still soft–the follicle will go from green to brown and if it begins to split, collect it right away! Otherwise wait until you can rioll it between your fingers and it splits–and don’t let the orange-ey seeds drop when that happens. In other words, wait until the follicle begins to dehisce before picking and removing seeds. It is better to put the follicle on a piece of paper in a seed cleaning screen to dry and naturally drop its seeds–those are the best ones! And keep it lidded, too, because they forcibly eject. bouncing ball-bearings of bitter potential… Richo

no, they fall under the classification of open pollinated and untreated. they’re from india. richo

The inhibitors are leached out by watering after the seed is planted. I haven’t really found any pretreatments that significantly alter the induction period. Scarification, soaking, willow water, etc–nothing seems to change the 6 month germination period. Sometimes a few seeds will germinate in a few weeks. Stay tuned on this item–we worked up a large number of andrographis plants and they are currently (9/3/2021) in full flower to early pod formation stage. if the herbal gods allow it, we will have significant seed resources, and dried andrographis herb for tincture makers, as well. Richo

if you plant the seeds in a deep flat in the greenhouse, in the usual manner, then as you water over the several weeks that it takes for them to start to germinate, the water courses over the seeds and leaches out germination inhibitors and once this happens, and the seed is warm, well-tamped and moist, then it will come up. This can take up to 6 months. I know of no faster way to do this. We will have significant amounts of seed and herb on andrographis this year (2021). r

hi sarah, it can be either depending on conditions. weeds contain germination inhibitors which serves them in terms of germinating in season, and may delay response in cultivation scenarios. Fresh seed may respond differently than stored seed, and old seed may be no good. so you see the reasons for confusion. a way through is to use our recently harvested seed and give it standard horticultural technique and keep an eye out for the seedlings when they occur. And they will. Also please make your order soon–we have limited supply of this seed and it is selling extremely fast. r

hi michael, thanks for contacting. the andrographis is slow to develop and shouldn’t be transplanted or up-potted until the seedlings are on their second set of true leaves. in my greenhouse this takes longer than 2 weeks. i think it makes sense to keep them in the greenhouse until the outdoor soil has really warmed up. for a common weed, they sure are tricky to grow. meanwhile the herb is so effective, unique, in great demand, and so we’re really trying to learn the nuances to grow it and will be putting in 3 times as many plants this year in hopes of keeping up herb and seedwise. thanks for working with it, sounds like it germinated well for you. it did for us, too, and it is strange–one flush of low germ fairly soon after planting, then a much better show a couple of weeks later. weird. r