Cultivation Process of Aloe vera

Soil

• Aloe Vera can be cultivated on any soil for 'dry land management', sandy loamy soil is the best suited for it.

Propagation

• Aloe Vera is generally propagated by root suckers by carefully digging out without damaging the parent plant and planting it in the main field. It can also be propagated through rhizome cuttings by digging out the rhizomes after the harvest of the crop and making them into 5-6 cm length cuttings with a minimum of 2-3 nodes on them. Then they are rooted in specially prepared sand beds or containers.
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• The plant is ready for transplanting after the appearance of the first sprouts. The process of cultivating Aloe Vera involves the following process:
• The ground is to be carefully prepared to keep free from weeds and the soil is ideally kept ideally slightly acidic. The soil should be supplied supplement in the form of ammonium nitrate every year.
• Normally a spacing of 40cm x 45cm or 60cm x 30cm is followed aloe pop would take about 18 - 24 months to fully mature.
• Planting is done with keeping space between each of the plants. The bets placing for aloe vera planting is the 40*45 or 30*60 which gives a greater amount of yield.
• The plants, in a year's time, would bear flowers that are bright yellow in colour. The leaves are 1 to 2 feet long and are cut without causing damage to the plant, so that it lasts for several years.
• The crop can be harvested 4 times a year. At the rate of 3 leaves cut from each plant, about 12 leaves are the harvest per plant per year. On an average, the yield per acre annually is about 60,000 kg.
• The leaves cut off close to the plant are placed immediately, with the cut end downwards, in a V-shaped wooden trough of about 4 feet long and 12 to 18 inches deep.
• The wooden trough is set on a sharp incline so that the juice, which trickles from the leaves very rapidly, flows down its sides, and finally escapes by a hole at its lower end into a vessel placed beneath.
• It takes about a quarter of an hour to cut leaves enough to fill a trough. The troughs are so distributed as to be easily accessible to the cutters.
• The leaves are neither infused nor boiled, nor is any use afterwards made of them except for manure. When the vessels receiving the juice become filled, the latter is removed to a cask or reserved for evaporation. This may be done at once, or it may be delayed for weeks or even months.
• The evaporation is generally conducted in a copper vessel; at the bottom of this is a large ladle, into which the impurities sink, and are from time to time removed as the boiling goes on.
• As soon as the inspissation has reached the proper point, which is determined solely by the experienced eye of the workman, the thickened juice is poured into large gourds or into boxes, and allowed to harden.

LEAVES :

1.   Its thick leaves contain the water supply for the plant to survive long periods of drought. 
2.   These leaves have a high capacity of retaining the water. 
3.   When a leaf is cut, a orange yellow sap drips from the open end which has a very strong laxative effect. When the green skin of a leaf is removed a clear mucilaginous substance appears that contain fibers, water and the ingredients to retain the water in the leaf. These ingredients give this "gel" its special qualities as they are known now for many centuries. Among the uses for this gel are acceleration of wound healing, use on skin burns, moisturizing dry skin and it is taken internally for peptic ulcers or gastritis.