LE QUOTIDIEN DU JARDIN CONNAISSEZ-VOUS LE CAROUBIER ET SAVEZ-VOUS COMMENT LE SEMER ? (émission N°86)

NewsJardinTV, the channel dedicated entirely to plants, gardens, botany, and gardening, is honored and pleased to offer you this 86th issue of its daily show: "Le Quotidien du Jardin." This program is available free of charge for 24 hours, after which it is made available exclusively to members of NewsJardinTV Le Club. Patrick Mioulane, editor-in-chief of NewsJardinTV, answers our subscriber Khames, who posted the following question on our YouTube channel: How to successfully sow kharroub? At first, the spelling confused me a little, but the sound suggests it refers to the carob tree. The spelling "kharroub" is a transposition of the plant's Arabic name. For botanists, it is Ceratonia siliqua, the name given to the plant in 1753 by Carl von Linné (1707-1778). Ceratonia derives from the Greek keration, "little horn," referring to the fruit, which is horn-shaped when ripe. The species name recalls that it is a pod, the carob tree belonging to the ancient legume family (now Fabaceae). The plant has various vernacular names, including: Blackbird, Bread of Saint John the Baptist, Egyptian fig, Pythagorean bean. The carob tree grows slowly. It will measure 5 to 15 m (around 50 years old) and live for 500 years. The evergreen foliage is composed of an even number of leaflets (called paripinnate); oval, leathery, and dark green. The carob tree is dioecious; the plants are therefore unisexual, but some plants sometimes bear hermaphroditic inflorescences. The tree flowers from July to November. Cylindrical clusters of 20 to 60 yellow to reddish flowers appear on shoots over two years old and even on branches (cauliflory). Pollination is provided by wind or insects. The fruits form on trees over 15 years old. These leathery, hanging pods measure 15 to 30 cm long. Initially green, they turn dark brown when ripe, after about a year. The pods contain 15 to 20 brown, flat, and very hard seeds, separated by a sweet, yellow, floury pulp. Carob flour is increasingly used in industrial products in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries, hence the strong growth of this crop, particularly in the Maghreb countries. The carob tree is resistant to severe summer droughts but is sensitive to cold (-5°C minimum). Fresh, mature seeds germinate in about a month. However, once dry, they become very hard, which hinders germination. The seeds must then be immersed in dilute sulfuric acid for one hour, then in water for 24 hours, or, if acid is not available, they must be soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes while stirring, then left submerged for 24 hours. The sulfuric acid treatment replaces the relationship between the plant and the animal, which usually swallows the seed, whose cuticle is attacked by digestive juices before being expelled uneaten. Sow the seeds on the surface of a vermiculite-filled tray, without covering them, and place the seed near a window in a room at a minimum temperature of 21°C. Light is essential for good germination. Since seedlings produce male and female plants randomly, they are primarily used as rootstock. A male plant can be grafted onto a female plant and vice versa. Grafting is done using buds with an eye growing in May-June, on seedlings that are 18 months to 2 years old and will produce their first carobs 5 years after grafting. It was long considered that carob seeds had the same weight (in fact, this is inaccurate), which led to their use as units of measurement in ancient times. From the carob tree comes the name carat (borrowed from the Arabic "qirât"), which represented the weight of a carob seed in the gemstone trade. Today, the carat remains the unit of measurement in jewelry. It corresponds to a diamond with a diameter of 6.4 mm, cut with 57 facets. Thank you for watching this daily program. We hope you enjoyed this short video interlude. The entire NewsJardinTV team wishes you a wonderful evening and looks forward to joining us tomorrow at 7 p.m. for a new show: "LE QUOTIDIEN DU JARDIN." It's on NewsJardinTV and nowhere else! To always receive all episodes of "Le Quotidien du Jardin," as well as all the "Bienvenue au Jardin" programs (starting with issue 68), become a member of NewsJardinTV le Club by clicking on the "join" box at the top right of the NewsJardinTV YouTube channel homepage and follow the instructions... Tomorrow, Patrick will answer this question: I heard about a strawberry tree. Does it produce real edible strawberries, and can it be grown in Normandy?