Seed to Seed : Know your Urad dal/ Black gram through leaves and flowers – Again

We are back again with urad dal to show you the beautiful flowers and pods which we missed in our earlier post.

Summarizing, the earlier post of Urad dal: the urad seeds underwent epigeal germination. The seeds emerged from the soil as seed leaves to serve the plants before the true leaves. Later the plants grew into beautiful and healthy plants with compound leaves.

Just before winter, we sowed some sabut urad seeds. But only one plant survived. The surviving plant moved away from the support we provided, and climbed on to a neighbouring plant. Initially it was little difficult to take photographs without avoiding the host plant.

When the plant began to flower, it became noticeable. Its branches were clearly seen twinning around the bamboo sticks.

Beautiful lemon yellow flowers adorned the plant.

The flowers also helped us to track the origin of the plant. A small cluster of yellow buds were seen growing from the node of the plant.

We just focused on few buds and went through their succeeding stages.

When the plant was about 90 days old the first bud was seen. At a closer look, it was not just a single bud but a cluster, where one of them was about to unfold. The cluster was at the end of a short stem which emerged from the space between a leaf and the stem.

The following day another bud unfolded.

In this way all the buds turned into a cluster of beautiful flowers.

2 – 3 days later flowers began to wither and the bud stem also became longer. A tiny pod appeared from the base of one of the flowers.

3 days later another bud stem with more flowers and pods were seen. In one cluster there are 3 flowers and 1 pod and in another 1 flower and 2 pods with the withered flowers still at their tips. The pods are marked with arrow heads.

The young pods were fully covered with fine white hair.

About 15 days later, only 2 pods each were left from both the clusters. 2 of them still had the dried flowers at their tips.

12 days later the dried flowers from the tip of the pods dropped out and the dark green pods began to change their colour from dark green to lighter green.

Another 10 days later, the pods were quite matured. The outlines of the seeds inside the pods were quite visible from outside and the colour changed from lighter green to yellowish green.

Another 5 days later one of the 4 pods had turned brownish black.

The following day out of the 4 pods, 2 became brownish black.

4 days later the 3 pods became brownish black. The 4^th pod fell off. When they become dark brownish black it means it is time to harvest the pods.

The pod that fell off, we allowed it to dry for a day or two and then split it open to display its seeds

The plant started budding when it was about 90 days old. From flower bud to the harvesting stage it took about 45 days. So, total life cycle of the urad plant was about 135 days. This is just a rough calculation.