Harvesting and Storage
This week will discuss different ways of harvesting lavender and how to store it properly. Harvesting is a manual or mechanical removal of a crops grain or biomass from the field. It is important to know when to harvest and how to store the harvested material properly, to reduce post-harvest losses. To determine whether the plant is mature or not, it is advisable to check on it every couple of days when the plant is close to reaching maturity. For lavender oil, it is important to harvest when the flowers are starting to open in the lower half. This is usually around end of December and early January in South Africa. The weather should not be too hot and very windy during harvesting since it can result in loss of essential oil through evaporation. On the other hand, cold weather has a negative effect on the ester development, so harvesting has to be done during warmer weather. Lavender for the fresh and dried market can be a week later than for oil production. If you want to harv...