This civil engineer knows how to make the most of geranium cultivation

Vishnu Sundar, 25, a civil engineer, felt a desire deep within to return to his hometown, Ooty, and do something differently while working in Hong Kong.
On returning home, Vishnu helped his father construct a hotel. In the meantime, he heard about geranium cultivation and related industries.

Two years ago, Vishnu decided to venture into geranium cultivation. “My father was actually cultivating geranium on a large-scale extracting oil and selling it 20 years back. However, since he took care of sales and marketing, the continuing labour problems and lack of sufficient rainfall led to loss in the business and gradually reducing the acreage. Geranium was cultivated in more than 1,000 acres in the Nilgiris 20 years ago,” Vishnu said.

“But two years back, I began learning more about the crop, the market for it, complications and the trade, among others,” he said.

Vishnu also met with scientists from the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP) and attended training programme conducted by the institute in Bengaluru. “I learnt the process of multiplying geranium plantations and making saplings during the training. It is basically like rose cuttings, where we cut a stem, plant it in the bed and water it. We then place a shade net over it. Once the roots start growing, we transplant it onto the main field,” he said. “I also took my raw material to the new distillation unit given to Ooty by CIMAP to try it and found myself extracting double the essential oil I got in our own steam distiller,” he added.

“I got 500ml of essential oil from 500kg of geranium using my father’s old distillation unit. But now I get 900ml from the same quantity of geranium using the unit provided by CIMAP. I have also met a buyer, who pays Rs 17,000/kg,” he said.

“While I also distill and sell oil from Algerian variety of geranium, I have begun multiplying the new ‘bourbon’ variety of geranium which we received from CIMAP six months back. While multiplying enough for my fields, I have also sold about 2,50,000 saplings,” Vishnu said.

“Besides geranium essential oil, natural agarbathi can be made from the remains of geranium extract or it can be used as manure. I see huge potential in multiplying and selling geranium saplings. The demand for geranium planting material is definitely picking up in Ooty,” he added.