About Lady's Finger Plant

Classification 
Lady's finger, is a tall-growing, warm-season, annual vegetable. It is a flowering plant belongs to Malvaceae or mallow family.

Scientific name: Abelmoschus esculentus
Common name: Okra, gumbo, lady's finger, bendi, Yang Jiao Dou, bhendi, balmiah


Structure and Physiology:

• It is a perennial,  semiwoody, fibrous, herbaceous annual with an indeterminate growth habit plant
• Grow 3-6 feet (0.9-1.8 m)or more in height
• The leaves are 10–20 cm long and broad, large, alternate, palmate leaves with small stipules.
• The flowers are 4–8 cm in diameter, with five white to yellow petals, often with a red or purple spot at the base of each petal. 
• The  fruit is a capsule up to 18 cm long with pentagonal cross-section, containing numerous seeds.
• Mature pods dehisce, releasing round, very hard, dark-green or brown seed. 
• Red pigmentation can also occur in various part of plants such as in stems, petioles, leaf veins, pedicel, and petal bases.
• Carries unicellular trichomes on almost all parts of the plant, providing protection from pests such as leafhoppers 

    

Image obtained from my house          

Lady's finger plant grow annually in temperate climate,cultivated throughout the tropical and warm temperate regions of the world. It will reaches maturity in 50 to 65 days.

Conditions for plant growth

1. Soil

Lady's finger plants can be grown on a wide range of soil types, although rich, sandy loam soils are optimum. It is most important that the soil be well drained and not prone to waterlogging.  It is slightly sensitive to excess soil acidity and the optimum soil pH range for okra is 6.0 to 7.0. The optimum soil temperature for germination is 75 to 90 ˚F (24 to 32 ˚C).

2. Irrigation

Lady's finger plants are tolerant of dry weather, but it is actually sensitive to moisture stress.  In general,  the effect of moisture stress depends on the phenological stage of the plant. The flowering and pod filling stages are critical, and water stress at this time can reduce yield >70%. When the plants suffer from lack of moisture, it will start to drop its leaves. Pod and leaves will drop if the drought continue and finally plant will die. Regular watering is needed and is particularly critical during flowering and pod development. A general recommendation is to apply 1 to 1.5 inches (25 to 38 mm) of water per week.

3. Light Requirement
Lady's finger thrives in the full, hot sun. 

3. Pest Managment

Insects- there are two group of insects pests: foliage feeders and pod feeders. 

Examples:aphids, stinkbugs, corn eartworm. thrips, mites flea beetles and grubs

Harvesting
Lady's finger plant reaches maturity in 50 to 65 days where the first harvest will be ready about 2 months after planting. The plants can produce for ten to 12 weeks. It grows and bears seed pods .



Uses
Leaves: The tender leaves of okra are often consumed as a vegetable in areas where a wide variety of leafy greens are used in the diet (e.g., western Africa, southeastern Asia).

Fruit: Can be boiled, added to soups, or sliced and fried the pod and serve as a dish.

Other uses of lady's finger plants including:
-Mature dried seed can used as a coffee substitute
-Oil and protein source
-making curd from seed
-fiber from stem used to make paper pulp
-Lady's finger stems can be burned as inexpensive fuel
-Pod that are boiled produce mucilage that used as a spreading agent in the manufacture of paper in Malaysia.




References:

1. Lamont, W. J. (1999). Okra—A versatile vegetable crop. HortTechnology, 9(2), 179-184.
2. How to grow okra. Retrieve from https://www.southernstates.com/articles/growing-okra.aspx