The Crop
The work to get a loofah.
The cultivator devotes a land near to a natural river to take advantage of the water during the production process, then the land is tilled and prepared for the crop, then the seed is irrigated and a creeper must be prepared so that the plant may climb down its fruits when they appear.
Three months will pass so that a very well cared plant may produce its first fruits, and another month will pass before they pass from a flower to a little stem that will grow up until turn into a green big cucumber and from this condition it will pass to a maturity condition reflected in a yellow color that indicates that the plant must be removed.
The care of the plant and the crop
Both, the plant as well as the fruit are exposed to different threats as the following:
Early morning frosts, which burn the fruit avoiding that it completes its maturity cycle in perfect conditions and causing its size reduction removal from the plant completely.
The worms attack the fruit in development and dry up the fruit or rot it completely.
The beetles or bedbugs perforate the peel protecting the fruit (the loofah) eliminating the development of the fiber properties and fading its content
For the above, the cultivator needs to invest her/his time in refreshing the land with water and feeding it with natural manures and fertilizers helping it to preserve the properties required for the survival of the plant. Also, the crop must be sprayed against pests to avoid the loss of the fruits.
Harvest of the fruit, extraction of the fiber and cleaning
The cultivator harvests the fruit manually in bags or sacks and leaves it during four (4) days in a basin of water to soften the peel, then it is collected and taken to the edge of the river where the peel covering the loofah is removed manually.
The fruit, (the loofah) is located in the river for its first natural washing and then is taken wet to the cleaning and final drying process which is made in wire fences where one by one are scattered to clean them and dried with the natural heat of the crop zone and overshadowed to avoid that the fiber gets dirty. The total drying may last up to a week depending from the wheatear and the wind of the crop region.
The dry loofah is collected in bales or groups of 40 - 60 units and stored in a ventilated and dry place ready to be taken to the market places or sales galleries.
Process
The cultivator (native or peasant) needs approximately four months to have a ripe crop. After tilling the land, assembling the creeper or bed for the plant, fertilizing the land and sowing the seed, he/she must be waiting for the growth of the flower and help it to climb the creeper by distributing it appropriately so that the fruit does not ruin and growths healthy. .
When the crop blooms, it gives fruit, to with: loofah. The cultivator must round the entire crop daily to remove the fruit from the plant (loofah) which has passed from a dark green color to a slightly yellow green color, by touching it hardness conditions to remove it from the plant and take it to a water basin where it will be left from 3 to 4 days in order to soften the peel..
The loofah cultivator peels off each loofah manually. Many of them do it in the edge of the rivers to take advantage of the natural water streams. Then they make a first cleaning of the loofah and collect its wet peel to take it to a deposit where it is processed to produce organic fertilizer to be used in the maintenance of the loofah crops. This way, the peel protecting the loofah is recycled as a fertilizer to continue with the loofah production.
The cultivators collect the loofah without peel and take it to cleaning and final drying sites. Some cultivators use the fences of their farms to this process and other ones have chambers and scaffolding facilitating the spraying and cleaning work with 13% sodium hyperchlorite which eliminates impurities and fungus producing a natural water washing and natural air and in shade drying before the selection for the packing and storing.
The cultivator, after the drying of the loofah, selects it per size and arranges bales of handling and viable storing in the warehouses of his/her farm where it is removed and delivered to the traders who will give the final use to the product. Some of them will use it for personal care products and other ones for the development of other industrial products.
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