User:Vanera/sandbox

…This is a cross-pollinating plant. However self-pollination may also occur now and then.

Agronomy
The controlled cultivation of medicinal plants like vitex agnus-castus gains increasing importance due to the modern quality standards and safety regulations such as GMP, that are required practices in order to conform to the guidelines recommended by agencies that control authorization and licensing for manufacture and sale of inter alia drug products, and GACP (Good Agricultural And Collection Practice), that is a guideline to ensure appropriate and consistent quality of medicinal plant respectively herbal substances. Only one variety of monks pepper, namely the variety “Agnuzell 440” that is optimized for medicinal use, is registered (as of April 2009) with CPVO, a system of plant variety rights. But the controlled cultivation is economically not satisfactory regarding the yield.

Reproduction
This plant could also be reproduced vegetatively. One possibility is to use 5-8 cm long piece of the ripening wood with buds in July or August and another is to cut a riped wood in November and then let it root in a cold box. Also in vitro reproduction with spike of the shoots or node explants is possible.

Cultivation
... This plant is inter alia a brackish water habitant. Consequently, it is salt tolerant to a certain level. Cold and wet weather results to high yield loss of Monks pepper. The plant grows well on loamy neutral to alkaline soil. The monks pepper fruits from one single tree can be harvested for more than 15 years. This indicate that the monks pepper can’t be integrated in a usual crop rotation system. Though, it is suggested to have legumes as its previous crop for nitrogen supply for the monks pepper in young stage. Besides, it is suggested to sow dissimilar plants such as monocots as its subsequent crop so that it might be easier to control the monks pepper plant, the dicot. Because the fruits of monks pepper tend to fall constantly and uncontrollably, it is likely that the plant can grow as weed again.

It is said that at a row spacing of 180 cm the overall best yield per hectare can be achieved if the plant spacing is around 70 cm.

Pinching out the tips of branches has no significant influence on growth, branching and number of shoots. Pruning back the branches in autumn has a positive influence on fruit yield while a re-pruning in spring can induce an increase of vegetative shoot and thus to tremendous fruit yield loss.

Harvest
The flowering and ripening process is not simultaneously. At the other hand it enables to get fresh fruits respectively seeds over a long span of time. Additionally, the riped fruit tend to fall down unpredictably and may get lost. Thus, there is no optimal fixed harvest time. Consequently, to avoid yield loss unripe fruits need to be harvested. This too early harvesting has no effect on quality. Overall it is said that harvesting the fruits by hand is the most convenient solution.