How spices grow
Quick answer
Every spice is part of a plant — a seed, a bark, a flower bud, a stigma, a rhizome — and much of what makes a spice expensive, scarce or variable is decided in the field. Some are sterile clones that can only be multiplied, never bred; some must be pollinated by hand; some take years to bear and are gathered one bud or one stigma at a time. This page gathers how spice crops grow, what threatens them and where they are produced today, from the records on each spice’s own page.
What kind of plant each spice comes from
Spices come from annual herbs harvested in months and from trees that take years to bear.
Annual herb
Cumin, Coriander seed, Coriander leaf, Aniseed, Dill seed, Ajwain, Fenugreek, Mustard seed, Nigella, Poppy seed, Safflower, Basil, Blue fenugreek, Epazote, Chervil, Huacatay, Shiso, Radhuni, Jakhiya, Jambu, Pápalo, Guascas, Savory, Sesame seed, Roselle, Douchi, Thua nao, Saharan cumin
Biennial herb
Perennial herb
Green cardamom, Black cardamom, Korarima, Grains of paradise, Torch ginger, Fennel seed, Asafoetida, Cayenne pepper, Paprika, Habanero, Ají amarillo, Malagueta pepper, Mint, Tarragon, Oregano, Horseradish, Wasabi, Liquorice root, Tsaoko, Round cardamom, Chives, Lovage, Marjoram, Golpar, Mitsuba, Sweet woodruff, Vietnamese coriander, Rice paddy herb, Cha phlu
Shrub
Annatto, Sumac, Mastic, Juniper, Sichuan pepper, Rocoto, Chiltepin, Lavender, Dried rose, Thyme, Rosemary, Sage, Pandan, Anardana, Barberry, Dried lime, Yuzu, Scent leaf, Koseret, Rue, Mexican oregano, Hoja santa, Sansho, Timur, Tasmanian pepperberry, Wattleseed, Za'atar herb, Andaliman, Pepperfruit, Gambian tea bush
Tree
Cinnamon (Ceylon), Cassia, Cloves, Nutmeg, Mace, Allspice, Star anise, Bay leaf, Curry leaf, Makrut lime leaf, Tonka bean, Mahleb, Pink peppercorn, Candlenut, Kokum, Tamarind, Lemon myrtle, Bois d'Inde, Amchoor, Dried orange peel, Kudampuli, Daun salam, Avocado leaf, Filé powder, Strawberry gum, Ishpingo, Makwaen, Litsea berry, Grains of Selim, Calabash nutmeg, Njangsa, Prekese, Dawadawa, Tirphal, Country onion, Anise myrtle, Garlic tree, Rosita de cacao, Asam gelugur
Climbing vine
Black pepper, Long pepper, Cubeb, Voatsiperifery, Timiz, Uziza
Hemi-epiphytic vine
Geophyte (grows from a corm, bulb or rhizome)
Ginger, Turmeric, Galangal, Kencur, Fingerroot, Mango ginger, Myoga, Saffron, Garlic, Black cumin, Musir, Jimbu, Ramsons
Grass
One plant, several spices
The catalogue holds more spices than plants. White pepper and green peppercorns are the pepper vine's fruit, dill leaf and dill seed are one plant, and most named chillies are pod types of one species. Each plant is described once, and the spices that share it point to that description.
- Cayenne pepper — also the plant behind Aleppo pepper, Ancho, Chile de árbol, Calabrian chilli, Cascabel, Chipotle, Piment d'Espelette, Guajillo, Jalapeño, Kashmiri chilli, Mulato, Pasilla, Poblano, Serrano, Urfa biber, Chilhuacle, Gochugaru, Chilli flakes, Chilli powder.
- Habanero — also the plant behind Carolina Reaper, Ghost pepper, Scotch bonnet, Ají dulce.
- Black pepper — also the plant behind White pepper, Green peppercorn.
- Dill seed — also the plant behind Dill.
- Fenugreek — also the plant behind Fenugreek leaf.
- Paprika — also the plant behind Smoked paprika.
- Anardana — also the plant behind Pomegranate molasses.
Not crops at all, and so described nowhere on this page: Salt, Black salt, MSG, Shrimp paste, Ogiri, Dagad phool, Garlic mustard.
Names that cover more than one plant, or whose plant is disputed: Bird's eye chilli, Ají panca, Marigold, Besobela.
Plants for which no competent account of the crop has been read: Verjuice, Tej patta, Tosign, Erik ekşisi, Chincho, Fish mint.
How spice crops are propagated
Whether a crop is grown from seed or cloned from cuttings decides how genetically diverse it is, how disease travels, and how long a farmer waits for a harvest.
Seed
Green cardamom, Black cardamom, Cinnamon (Ceylon), Cassia, Cloves, Nutmeg, Allspice, Star anise, Curry leaf, Annatto, Cumin, Coriander seed, Fennel seed, Aniseed, Caraway, Dill seed, Ajwain, Celery seed, Fenugreek, Mustard seed, Nigella, Poppy seed, Cayenne pepper, Paprika, Habanero, Ají amarillo, Rocoto, Malagueta pepper, Safflower, Basil, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Onion, Daun salam, Avocado leaf, Litsea berry, Grains of Selim, Calabash nutmeg, Scent leaf, Mexican oregano, Tasmanian pepperberry, Wattleseed, Black cumin, Blue fenugreek, Culantro, Epazote, Chervil, Chives, Lovage, Marjoram, Huacatay, Shiso, Radhuni, Jakhiya, Jambu, Pápalo, Guascas, Savory, Andaliman, Garlic tree, Rosita de cacao, Ramsons, Sesame seed, Asam gelugur, Roselle, Douchi, Thua nao
Stem cuttings
Vanilla, Black pepper, Long pepper, Cubeb, Cinnamon (Ceylon), Bay leaf, Mastic, Lavender, Dried rose, Tarragon, Thyme, Rosemary, Sage, Horseradish, Lemon myrtle, Anardana, Barberry, Uziza, Scent leaf, Hoja santa, Tasmanian pepperberry, Za'atar herb, Vietnamese coriander, Jambu, Roselle
Rhizome division
Ginger, Turmeric, Galangal, Kencur, Fingerroot, Mango ginger, Torch ginger, Myoga, Tarragon, Lemongrass, Wasabi, Liquorice root, Tsaoko, Round cardamom
Layering
Grafting
Nutmeg, Mace, Makrut lime leaf, Dried orange peel, Avocado leaf, Asam gelugur
Suckers
Green cardamom, Black cardamom, Curry leaf, Pandan, Barberry, Hoja santa
Crops that depend on people, or on no pollinator at all
Hand-pollinated, sterile, or harvested before any fruit is set.
Vanilla
A flap of tissue, the rostellum, separates the pollen from the stigma, so the flower cannot pollinate itself unaided. Natural pollination in Mexico is rare, with around 1% of flowers setting fruit. The long-repeated claim that Melipona stingless bees are its pollinator is not supported: in recent field observation in Yucatán, stingless bees and orchid bees were present around flowering vines and did not visit the nectarless flowers, and the natural pollinator remains unconfirmed. Commercial vanilla depends on hand pollination, the technique of pushing the rostellum aside with a sliver of wood and pressing the anther to the stigma. Charles Morren first did it in Liège in 1836; Edmond Albius worked out and spread a quick, practical version on Réunion about 1841, and it is what made cultivation outside Mexico possible.
Ginger
Flowers rarely and almost never sets seed in cultivation, so breeding works through selection among clones rather than crosses. The plant sequenced for the ginger reference genome, a traditional cultivar of south-west China, is diploid with 22 chromosomes, and its two chromosome sets differ at about 3.6% of positions. Marker studies show what spreading a crop by rhizome does to it in a new country: 55 Brazilian accessions were highly similar to one another whatever region they came from, and most of the variation found lay between them and six Colombian ones. Clones are not all alike, though: sixteen Indian cultivars could each be told apart by their markers, and differed in nuclear DNA content and in karyotype.
Turmeric
Triploid and largely seed-sterile, so pollination plays no part in the crop. Turmeric has 63 chromosomes. The project that sequenced its genome describes it as triploid, three sets of 21; a cytological survey of Indian Curcuma takes the base number of the group to be seven, on which reckoning 63 is nine sets. The same survey found the nuclear DNA content of cultivated turmeric varying by up to 15.1% between samples, so the crop is not a single uniform clone. A marker study of Indian Curcuma found that species with nine or fifteen sets reproduce only vegetatively and hold significantly less genetic diversity within a population than the six-set species, which reproduce mainly by seed.
Cloves
The crop is harvested as buds, before the flowers open, so pollination plays no part in it.
Bay leaf
Grown for its leaves, so flowering and pollination play no part in the harvest.
Coriander leaf
Cut before flowering; once the plant bolts, the leaves turn feathery and the flavour changes.
Saffron
Sterile, and harvested as stigmas from the opening flower, so pollination plays no part in the crop.
Basil
Harvested as leaves; flowering is pinched out because it coarsens the plant.
Mint
Spearmint is insect-pollinated; peppermint, a sterile hybrid, sets no seed.
Tarragon
The cultivars of French tarragon seldom produce normal flowers and never set viable seed, so the plant is kept going entirely from cuttings. Russian tarragon flowers and sets viable seed normally. Either way the crop is the leaf.
Sage
Self-compatible, but predominantly cross-pollinated by insects, and much visited by butterflies and bees. Most cultivated sages set no viable seed in the tropical lowlands. The leaf crop does not depend on any of this: it is cut just before flowering.
Parsley
Harvested as leaves from the rosette of the first year. The plant flowers only after it has been through cold, and a crop is left to do so only where seed is wanted.
Lemongrass
Harvested as leaf and stalk, and seldom flowers in cultivation.
Pandan
Known only from cultivation and not known to set seed.
Garlic
Most garlic clones do not set seed, so pollination plays no part in the crop.
Chervil
Harvested as leaves and stems, picked before the flower buds open; the flower stems are cut out before they bloom to keep the foliage dense.
Marjoram
The herb is cut just as flowering begins, so the crop does not wait on pollination. Seed is wanted only for sowing, and where water conditions are unfavourable hardly any normal seed develops.
Asam gelugur
The tree can set fruit and seed without being pollinated. The handbook notes that it usually bears female flowers only, male flowers being uncommon. In an orchard in Songkhla, southern Thailand, flowers bagged and left unpollinated still bore fruit, though fewer and smaller, with fewer seeds that germinated less well than those of open-pollinated or hand-pollinated flowers. Among seedlings from open-pollinated fruit, 58 per cent on average were genetically identical to the mother tree, the share ranging from 36 to 87 per cent, and the rest showed that fertilisation had taken place. The authors call this facultative apomixis: seed is formed both ways, and pollination still matters to the size of the crop.
Why some spices cost what they do
Explained from yield, labour, time to harvest and where production is concentrated. Not prices, and not advice.
Black pepper
Pepper is cheap as spices go because the vine, once established, bears for many years and the product needs only drying. Origin premiums are grading premiums: Malabar pepper garbled to the larger Tellicherry sizes commands more because a larger, heavier berry is a more mature one, not because of a mystique of place.
Green cardamom
Cardamom is dear because it is picked capsule by capsule in repeated rounds, cured with fuel, and graded on a colour that careless drying destroys. Supply is concentrated in Guatemala and southern India, so a poor season in either moves the price.
Cinnamon (Ceylon)
Ceylon cinnamon costs more than cassia because it is peeled by hand from young coppiced shoots into thin nested quills, where cassia is thicker bark stripped from older trees. The price difference is mostly labour and skill.
Vanilla
Vanilla is expensive because of work that cannot be mechanised — pollinating each flower by hand, picking each pod, curing for months — and volatile because supply is concentrated on one cyclone-exposed coast and a new vine takes years to bear. A storm cuts supply for several seasons; high prices then draw in planting that arrives years later, when prices may already have fallen. Theft and premature harvest in high-price years lower quality further.
Saffron
Saffron is the most expensive spice by weight because each flower gives three stigmas, every flower is picked and every stigma separated by hand in a few autumn weeks, and on the order of a hundred thousand or more flowers go into a kilogram. The price is labour, not rarity: the plant is not scarce, the work is.
Cloves
Clove supply is uneven because trees bear irregularly, heavy crops alternating with light ones, and the world price is set largely by Indonesia’s domestic demand for cigarette cloves rather than by the culinary market.
Nutmeg
A slow and uncertain crop: trees take years to bear, only female trees fruit and their sex is unknown until they flower, so planting is a long bet. Production is concentrated in Indonesia and Grenada, and losing trees to storms or disease takes years to replace.
Cumin
Yields are low. The handbook gives the average in India under normal circumstances as about 100 kg of dry fruit per hectare, with up to 1.2 t possible under optimum conditions with irrigation and fertiliser. It estimated world production at 50,000 t a year, noting that statistics are rare, and named Iran, Pakistan and Turkey as the major exporters. In the early 1990s the United States imported about 6,000 t a year, worth about 12 million US dollars.
Coriander seed
Rain-fed crops usually give 400–700 kg of fruit per hectare and irrigated crops about 2 t; the yield can exceed 4 t. The handbook estimated the world’s coriander at 550,000 hectares a year yielding about 600,000 t of fruit, most of it used as spice and about a tenth distilled for oil. These are its figures of 1999.
Fennel seed
Fruit yields range from 0.5 to 2 t a hectare and are low in the year of sowing: the handbook gives European yields as 0.4 t in the first year, 1–2 t in the second and 0.6–1.5 t in the third, and Indian averages as 0.5–0.7 t, reaching 1.5 t with adequate management. It names India, China and Egypt as the main suppliers, with India producing 20,000 t of fruit a year and exporting 2,000 t, and records United States imports of 1,750 t in 1988. It notes that few trade statistics exist for fennel alone.
Fenugreek
Fenugreek may give 600–900 kg of seed per hectare at a harvest. In India a crop grown for seed alone produced up to 1,675 kg, and one that had first been cut once for leaf, 45 days after sowing, 595 kg; the handbook also cites 1.4 t per hectare from Egypt and 3.7 t from the United Kingdom. It is not a demanding crop: it fixes nitrogen, and for seed needs potash and phosphate.
Mustard seed
White mustard yields about 500–1,500 kg of seed per hectare and may reach 2,400 kg; black mustard about 300–600 kg, with up to 1,100 kg reported under good husbandry; brown mustard 900–1,200 kg in India and about 1,100–1,500 kg in the United States. The spice handbook put brown and white mustard at about 40 and 60 per cent of the world trade in mustard seed and called the share of black mustard minimal; Canada in 1994 produced 216,000 t on about 200,000 hectares, about half of it white mustard. These are figures of 1999 and 2007 and describe that time.
Thyme
The handbook gives the yield as about 5 t of fresh herb or 1 t of dried herb per hectare in the first year, and 12–14 t fresh or 2–3 t dried in the years after. How often the crop is cut matters: cut every four months it gave 4.6 t a hectare in a year, against 2.6 t when cut every two months. World production was estimated at 1,500 t a year, mainly from around the Mediterranean, with the caution that statistics are rare; in 1988 the United States imported more than 900 t of unprocessed thyme worth 2 million US dollars, mostly from Spain.
Long pepper
A minor crop beside black pepper. Indian long pepper matters commercially only in India, with modest exports within Asia; Java long pepper was exported at 200–250 t a year in the 1920s and is described at the end of the twentieth century as practically forgotten outside the Far East.
Cubeb
A vine starts to bear in its first year, reaches full production after three or four, and can remain productive for fifty to sixty years, yielding about half a kilogram of dried fruit a year. Indonesia exported about 270 t in 1925 and an average of 135 t a year until 1940; later in the century only local trade and some trade through Singapore to India remained.
Dill seed
Seed yields range from 0.7 to 1.2 t a hectare and fresh herb from 3 to 20 t, the herb drying to about a tenth of its fresh weight. The handbook names the United States as the largest user of the fruit, at about 600 t a year, ahead of Japan at 50 t and Germany at 30 t. It advised against expanding production, because so small a market is easily glutted and prices then fall very low, and expected dill to remain chiefly a home-garden herb.
Caraway
Caraway is a world-market commodity that is usually oversupplied, so its price is chronically low. In times of scarcity the price rises fast, growers respond by sowing more, and overproduction follows — a cycle the handbook describes as characteristic of the crop.
Annatto
Many producing countries use much of their own annatto, so trade figures understate the crop. The international market was estimated at 2000–3000 t of seed a year in the 1970s, with the United States the main buyer and about 70 per cent of imports going into cheese-making.
Tamarind
Production is substantial but seldom recorded separately. India, the largest producer, harvested 250,000 t in 1964 and exports several thousand tonnes a year, mainly seed and seed powder with some pulp; Thailand exported 11,000–21,000 t of dried pods a year in the early 1980s.
Makrut lime leaf
The leaf is the crop, and in Java some of it is turned into essential oil for a second income. In Tulungagung that oil sold at the farm gate for about 700,000 rupiah a kilogram, under 50 US dollars, when the same oil was offered online at more than 150 dollars — a gap the researchers attribute to the lack of quality control on what the distillers produce. These are prices as reported in 2021 and are not a guide to what the oil costs now.
Garlic
Garlic is planted from its own harvest: 750–2,800 kg of cloves per hectare in South-East Asia, against yields there of about 2.5–4.5 t per hectare around 1990, when the world average was 6 t and some subtropical countries reported 10 t or more. The handbook adds that virus infection, present almost everywhere in the crop, probably depresses yields severely. These are figures of about 1990 and describe that time.
Onion
Yields in South-East Asia of 10–20 t per hectare were close to the world average of 14 t in 1989 and far below the 50 t and more reached at higher latitudes. The handbook’s account of why many tropical countries still imported onions is that cultivars adapted to local conditions, resistant to disease and able to keep had not yet been bred. These are figures of about 1989 and describe that time.
Sesame seed
Smallholder yields in pure stands seldom exceed 500 kg of seed per hectare, against 2,000 kg or more under intensive, high-input production. The handbooks estimate that insects take about a quarter of the potential yield worldwide, and add that chemical control is generally unprofitable for the crop. A non-shattering mutant found in 1943 gave cultivars that could be harvested by machine but were hard to thresh. These are the handbooks’ figures, of 2001 and 2007, and describe that time.
Roselle
Fresh calyx yields are put at 4–6.5 t per hectare, or about 800–1,200 kg dried to 12 per cent moisture, and at up to 15 t fresh in Asia. Yields in Africa are much lower and more variable: Sudan reports an average of 93 kg of dry calyces per hectare, and the maximum in Senegal is 500 kg. The planted area in Sudan swung between 11,000 and 57,000 ha with rainfall and price. These are the handbook’s figures of 2011.
Rosemary
A planting yields about 3 t of fresh leaf per hectare, and can stay productive for up to 30 years under good conditions and management. The handbook described supply as adequate and rosemary as one of the least expensive herbs in the spice trade, so that new producers would find the market hard to enter. That is its assessment of 1999.
Sage
The first year gives little. In the second and third years 1.2–2 t of dried leaf per hectare are possible, exceptionally 5 t, and the yield declines in the fourth and fifth; 2.5–5 t a year, after the first, are reported from the United States. The Adriatic coast of the Balkans was the main producing and exporting area and the United States the main importer, using about 4,000 t a year. These are the handbook’s figures, of 1999 and earlier.
Parsley
Yields are generally 10–20 t of fresh herb per hectare, exceptionally 60 t, or 2–3 t dried: fresh parsley loses 80–90 per cent of its weight on drying. Single and repeated harvesting yield much the same, but frequent harvests generally give the better product. The handbook judged parsley the most widely used fresh herb in the major European countries, with much of the demand met by growers at home; in the United Kingdom in 1986 it took 300 of the 558 hectares planted with culinary herbs.
Marjoram
Yields depend greatly on whether the crop is grown as an annual or a perennial and on how densely it is planted. Over a two-year cycle marjoram gives 1.4–3.4 t of dried leaf per hectare in the first year and 2.8–5.2 t in the second. The handbook put the value of world production of marjoram oil in the 1990s at 2.1 million US dollars.
Tarragon
Tarragon is a perennial, but the oil content falls in older plants, so commercial plantings are renewed every three to four years. Plantations outside South-East Asia average 2.5–3.7 t of fresh herb per hectare in the first year and 5–6 t in the second. The handbook’s figures for yearly consumption in the main markets are small: 80–100 t in France and 40–50 t in the United States.
Chervil
Chervil is of minor importance in trade, and the handbook found no figures for its production. The one yield it gives is 2.3 kg per square metre after 42 days in a greenhouse hydroponic system; for the field it had none.
Poppy seed
Grown for seed, the poppy usually yields between 1.2 and 1.8 t per hectare. Its cultivation has been prohibited in many countries, and the handbook thought growing it for edible seed and seed oil might hold some prospects but would need close monitoring.
Jakhiya
In pure stands of 35,000 plants per hectare, seed yields of 600 kg per hectare have been obtained; the handbook does not say where. It adds that the crop is not attacked by insect pests or damaged by wildlife, because the plant is sticky and smells strongly, that it is treated as a noxious weed in some regions, and that it is a host of papaya ringspot virus and of two root-knot nematodes. The account dates from 2004.
Guascas
Chiefly a weed. A single plant eight to nine weeks old can produce over 7,000 viable seeds, several generations are possible in one growing season, and plants left on the ground after weeding may root again. The handbook lists it as a common and locally serious weed of wheat and maize in Ethiopia, cotton in Uganda, coffee, maize, sorghum and beans in Tanzania and potatoes in Mozambique, and as an alternate host of insects and viruses that affect tobacco, potato and cabbage.
Pests and diseases of spice crops
Plant health: what damages the crop and costs the grower. Food-safety hazards are a different subject, kept on the safety page.
Foot rot of pepper
Water-mould diseasePhytophthora capsici · Roots and collar of the vine · India and Southeast Asia, wherever pepper is grown in wet conditions
The most destructive disease of black pepper. Infection at the base of the vine during the monsoon can kill a mature vine within weeks — the "quick wilt" of the Indian trade — and it has repeatedly devastated plantations in India and Southeast Asia.
How growers manage it:Managed through drainage, healthy planting material and sanitation, since a killed vine cannot be saved.
Slow decline of pepper
NematodesPlant-parasitic nematodes (Radopholus similis, Meloidogyne spp.) with fungal root infection · Feeder roots · India and Indonesia
Root damage by nematodes, often compounded by fungi, causes vines to yellow and lose vigour over several seasons until they are unproductive — a slow counterpart to foot rot.
Cardamom mosaic (katte)
Viral diseaseCardamom mosaic virus, spread by the banana aphid · Whole plant · Southern India
Infected plants develop mosaic leaf symptoms and decline in yield over successive seasons; the virus spreads through aphids and infected planting material and cannot be cured in a plant.
How growers manage it:Managed by removing infected plants and using virus-free planting material.
Cardamom thrips
Insect pestSciothrips cardamomi · Flowers and capsules · Southern India
Feeding scars the capsules, which lowers their grade even where yield is kept; thrips are a principal pest of Indian cardamom.
Capsule rot of cardamom (azhukal)
Water-mould diseasePhytophthora species · Capsules, leaves and panicles · Southern India
A monsoon disease that rots capsules on the panicle during heavy rain and high humidity, with losses in wet years.
Soft rot of ginger
Water-mould diseasePythium species · Rhizomes and pseudostem base
The most damaging disease of ginger: rhizomes rot in the ground in waterlogged soil, and the disease is carried to new fields in infected seed rhizomes.
How growers manage it:Managed through drainage and disease-free seed rhizomes.
Bacterial wilt of ginger
Bacterial diseaseRalstonia solanacearum · Whole plant; rhizomes
Plants wilt and rhizomes rot; the bacterium persists in soil and in seed rhizomes, which makes contaminated ground hard to replant with ginger.
Rhizome rot of turmeric
Water-mould diseasePythium species · Rhizomes
Rhizomes rot in poorly drained soil, reducing yield and quality; spread in infected planting material.
Root and stem rot of vanilla
Fungal diseaseFusarium oxysporum (the vanilla-specific form) · Roots and stem
The most serious disease of vanilla worldwide: roots and stems rot and vines die, and because plantations are clonal, stems propagated from cuttings share their susceptibility.
Corm rot of saffron
Fungal diseaseFusarium oxysporum and other soil fungi · Corms
Corms rot in the ground, especially in wet soil; because saffron is propagated only by its corms, an infected stock carries the disease from field to field.
Anthracnose of chilli
Fungal diseaseColletotrichum species · Ripening fruit
Sunken rotting lesions on ripening pods, often worst in warm wet weather; a major cause of fruit loss in chilli crops.
Fusarium wilt of cumin
Fungal diseaseFusarium oxysporum f. sp. cumini · Roots and vascular tissue · India
Plants wilt and die; the fungus persists in soil, which is why cumin is not grown repeatedly on the same ground. In India it attacks young plants, especially on light soils.
Blight of cumin
Fungal diseaseAlternaria burnsii · Leaves, stems and flowering heads · India
Spreads rapidly in humid or cloudy weather at flowering and can destroy a crop within days; the main reason cumin is confined to dry regions.
Stem gall of coriander
Fungal diseaseProtomyces macrosporus · Stems, leaves and fruits · India
Galls on stems and fruits reduce yield and spoil the seed; a significant disease of coriander in India.
Sumatra disease of clove
Bacterial diseasePseudomonas syzygii (the name under which the handbook records it), spread by Hindola spittlebugs · Xylem of the whole tree · Sumatra and West Java, Indonesia
The main disease of clove in Indonesia, killing up to a tenth of mature trees a year in parts of Sumatra and West Java. The bacteria live in the water-conducting vessels and spread upwards from the roots; trees die back from the crown with discoloured vessels and decayed roots. No resistant clove cultivar had been found.
How growers manage it:Antibiotic injection delays but does not cure the decline. Because tube-building spittlebugs of the genus Hindola carry the bacterium, and nearby forest is a source of them, research has turned to the insects and to grafting onto resistant relatives.
Leaf blister blight of clove
Fungal diseasePhyllosticta and related fungi · Leaves and young shoots · Indonesia
Known in Indonesia as cacar daun, and second only to Sumatra disease in the crop and trees it costs there.
Dry rot of nutmeg fruit
Fungal diseaseStigmina myristicae (formerly Coryneum myristicae) · Young fruit
The one fungal disease of nutmeg the handbook calls of major importance. The rot makes fruits split open while still young, so the aril and seed inside stay underdeveloped and are worthless — both spices lost at once. Its spores travel on wind and rain. A soft rot caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides opens unripe fruit in the same way.
How growers manage it:Chemical control of nutmeg diseases is rarely practised: it costs too much for smallholders, and the damage is usually too small to justify it.
Nutmeg bark beetle
Insect pestPhloeosinus ribatus, a scolytid beetle · Bark and cambium of the trunk, above and below ground · South-East Asia
The most serious pest of nutmeg. The beetle bores through bark and cambium, causing dieback and death of the tree, and it is blamed for the collapse of nutmeg production in Singapore and Penang in the 1860s.
Anthracnose of vanilla
Fungal diseaseGlomerella vanillae · All aerial parts of the vine · All vanilla-producing countries
Found in every vanilla-producing country, attacking stems, leaves and pods alike. It is favoured by too much shade and by humid conditions.
How growers manage it:Because heavy shade favours it, the best control is to thin the shade over the vines.
Leaf blotch of turmeric
Fungal diseaseTaphrina maculans · Leaves
One of the two diseases the handbook ranks as most important in turmeric, with rhizome rot. Spots a millimetre or two across appear on both leaf surfaces and merge; the leaves distort, turn reddish-brown and soon yellow.
How growers manage it:Cultivars resistant to the disease are available.
Leaf spot of turmeric
Fungal diseaseColletotrichum capsici · Leaves
Spots enlarge to several centimetres and merge until most of the leaf dries up. In very severe attacks the crop looks scorched and yield losses exceed 50 per cent. Excess shade and intercropping favour the disease.
How growers manage it:Planting material is taken from disease-free areas, since the disease is carried on it.
Shoot borer of ginger, turmeric and cardamom
Insect pestDichocrocis punctiferalis, a moth · Shoots; in cardamom also the capsules · Asia, especially India
The most important foliage pest of ginger in Asia, especially India. The caterpillars bore into the shoot and kill its centre — the “dead heart” of turmeric — and the same species is among the commonest stem borers of the tropics, attacking cardamom shoots and capsules as well.
Stripe canker of cinnamon
Water-mould diseasePhytophthora cinnamomi · Trunk and branches, especially of young trees
Vertical strips of bark die, particularly near ground level, on young trees above all — damage to the very organ that is harvested. The handbook lists it first among the diseases of Ceylon cinnamon and notes that it also occurs on the cassias.
Virus diseases of chilli
Viral diseaseCucumber mosaic virus, chilli veinal mottle virus, potato virus Y and tobamoviruses · Whole plant · Asia
Viruses cause the most serious damage of any disease group in Capsicum peppers, and these four are the most important in Asia. Few cultivars carry resistance to them.
How growers manage it:The obvious control is resistant cultivars, of which few were known when the account was written.
Phytophthora blight and crown rot of chilli
Water-mould diseasePhytophthora capsici · Crown and foliage
Listed with Cercospora leaf spot, bacterial spot and bacterial wilt among the important diseases of Capsicum peppers after the viruses and anthracnose. Severe flooding is injurious to most cultivars in its own right.
How growers manage it:Best handled by integrated management, including resistant cultivars where they exist; the account warns that inappropriate and excessive pesticide use often makes pest problems on peppers worse.
Fusarium wilt of basil
Fungal diseaseFusarium oxysporum f. sp. basilici · Stems; the whole plant wilts
Can devastate a crop. Brown streaks appear on the stems, the plants grow normally until 15–30 cm tall, then stunt and suddenly wilt from the tip downwards. Only French-type sweet basil is seriously affected. The fungus may survive in soil for eight to twelve years and travels long distances on seed.
Powdery mildew of fennel
Fungal diseaseLeveillula taurica · Whole plant and fruits · India
The most important disease of fennel in India: white powdery patches spread over the plant and the fruits shrivel and drop.
Wet-weather rots of dill
OtherFusarium culmorum, Pythium sp. and Rhizoctonia sp. · Whole plant · Temperate climates
Prolonged wet weather in temperate climates encourages these organisms, which can destroy the crop.
How growers manage it:The handbook says control is not possible. The one measure it offers is to grow a crop the wind can dry easily: not too dense, and sparingly supplied with nitrogen.
Fungal attack of dill in flower
Fungal diseaseBotrytis sp. and Alternaria sp. · Flowering umbels
Wet weather while the crop is in flower can bring attack by these fungi, which prevents the fruit from setting.
Seed chalcid of cumin and dill
Insect pestSystole albipennis · Fruits
The larvae of this chalcid fly eat the fruits of cumin, where the handbook counts it among the major pests, and may infest the fruits of dill.
Dodder on thyme
OtherCuscuta sp., a parasitic plant · Whole plant
Thyme seldom suffers seriously from diseases or pests. The exception the handbook names is dodder, which can be a major problem and sometimes overgrows the thyme completely.
Seed-borne bacterial blight of coriander
Bacterial diseasePseudomonas syringae pv. coriandricola · Carried on the fruits used as seed
Seed-borne bacterial diseases, of which this is the one the handbook names, can cause considerable losses in coriander.
How growers manage it:Because the bacterium travels on the fruit used as seed, heat treatment or disinfection of the seed is the point of control.
Andretra, the clove leaf miner of Madagascar
Insect pestChrysotypus mabilianum, a moth · Described as a leaf miner; the damage is not detailed · East coast of Madagascar
The main pest of clove in Madagascar, first recorded there in 1933. A review of the Malagasy clove sector describes its damage as widespread and hard to estimate, and notes that no lasting means of protection or prevention has been put in place.
Chilli leaf curl disease
Viral diseaseChilli leaf curl virus and related begomoviruses, carried by whiteflies of the Bemisia tabaci complex · Leaves and the whole plant · Tropical and subtropical Asia, especially India
The most troublesome begomovirus disease of chilli in Asia. It is a comparatively recent problem: symptoms were described in India in the 1960s, and the severity and spread of begomoviruses in chilli have increased markedly since about 2005. In tropical and subtropical regions losses of up to 100 per cent are reported. Mixed infections allow the viruses to recombine, which is how more damaging strains arise and how resistance in a cultivar comes to break down.
How growers manage it:Breeding resistant cultivars is regarded as the most effective defence, because the whitefly passes the virus on as it first probes a leaf, before an insecticide can act.
Black thrips of chilli
Insect pestThrips parvispinus, an invasive flower thrips · Flowers, young leaves and fruit · South-East Asia, where it is long established, and southern India since 2021
The thrips feed inside the flowers and along the midribs on the underside of the leaves. Infested plants show silvery to brown discoloration of tender leaves and fruit, crinkled leaves that curl upwards, brittle buds, and flowers dropping in large numbers. The species was first reported in India in 2015, on papaya, and reached chilli in 2021; in field conditions in Indonesia it has been reported to cut pepper yields by up to 23 per cent.
Leaf blight of makrut lime
Fungal diseaseLasiodiplodia chinensis · Leaves · Lamphun Province, northern Thailand
Small pale yellow spots with a yellow halo spread into irregular brown lesions at the margins and tips of the leaf, which merge until the leaf browns, curls and dies — on a crop grown for its leaves, a direct loss of what is sold. The disease was first seen in 2021 in a plantation area of Lamphun Province in northern Thailand, where 20 to 30 per cent of plants were affected, and had not been reported on makrut lime before.
Chirkey of large cardamom
Viral diseaseA mosaic-streak virus spread in sap and by the aphid Rhopalosiphum maidis · Leaves; the whole clump declines · Eastern Nepal and Sikkim and Darjeeling, India
Described as a major cause of the decline of large cardamom production in Nepal and India. Leaves develop a mosaic with pale streaks, turn pale brown and wither, flowering falls away, and the growth and yield of an infected plant decline gradually until it dies.
Foorkey of large cardamom
Viral diseaseA nanovirus carried by the aphid Micromyzus kalimpongensis and in infected rhizomes · Whole clump; flowering shoots · Eastern Nepal and Sikkim and Darjeeling, India
Infected plants throw up masses of stunted shoots at the base and form bushy, dwarfed clumps; the flowering spikes turn leafy and set no fruit, and the clump eventually dies. The disease moves between areas in infected planting rhizomes and within a plantation on aphids.
Purple blotch of garlic and onion
Fungal diseaseAlternaria porri · Leaves · South-East Asia and tropical Africa
The main problem of garlic growers in South-East Asia, and with pink root the most important disease of garlic in tropical Africa. On onion it is the most important leaf disease when rain falls while the bulbs are swelling. It is worst in humid air and in the rainy season. Onions on acid soils short of calcium are especially susceptible, as is garlic poorly supplied with calcium or affected by aluminium toxicity.
How growers manage it:Growers in South-East Asia spray fungicide against it regularly and intensively. Healthy planting material, a modest dressing of nitrogen and wider spacing reduce the damage, and on acid soils lime placed in the planting furrow can help.
Virus infection of garlic
Viral diseaseOnion yellow dwarf virus and leek yellow stripe virus, garlic strains · Whole plant
Every garlic cultivar carries one virus and more often several. The most harmful are the garlic strains of onion yellow dwarf virus and leek yellow stripe virus: removing them raises the yield by 25–50 per cent, depending on the cultivar and the clone. On Java onion yellow dwarf virus was found in 87 per cent of the crop and leek yellow stripe virus in about 19 per cent.
How growers manage it:Plants free of virus can be raised by meristem culture. For the tropics the South-East Asian handbook thought it more practical to select all planting material by eye and to pull out infected plants.
Pink root of onion and garlic
Fungal diseasePyrenochaeta terrestris · Roots · Semi-arid tropical Africa, the Sahel in particular
The most important soil-borne disease of onion in semi-arid regions: the roots rot while the bulb is swelling, and the bulbs stay small. The fungus can persist in the soil for several years and also invades the roots of other alliums and of grasses such as maize. On garlic it is often seen in the Sahel.
How growers manage it:Kept in check by rotation: five years without onion or garlic, and for onion without cereals either. An onion cultivar selected as resistant was still affected in Senegal, where onions were grown year after year and irrigated with saline water.
Onion thrips
Insect pestThrips tabaci · Leaves
The principal insect pest of onions and shallots in tropical Africa and the most widespread pest of garlic, whose leaves it leaves with a greyish, streaked discoloration. Spraying insecticide against caterpillars often makes thrips damage worse, because it kills the natural enemies of the thrips.
How growers manage it:Insecticides control it, but spraying plain water into the leaf whorls, or irrigating from overhead, also limits it. Some onion cultivars tolerate thrips, among them one bred in Senegal.
Black mould of stored onions
Fungal diseaseAspergillus niger · Stored bulbs
The principal cause of rot in stored onions, a common mould that otherwise lives on dead matter. Bulbs that became too hot while drying on the soil are the most likely to rot. Rot and sprouting feed each other: infection can make a bulb sprout early, and the flesh of a sprouting bulb is the more susceptible to rot.
How growers manage it:Black mould in store was shown to follow infestation of the seed, so clean or disinfected seed is used. Disinfecting the store helps, as does destroying cockroaches, which carry the spores.
Spider mite on fenugreek
Mite pestTetranychus cucurbitae · Fruit set · India
In India fenugreek is often infested by this mite, and the result is poor fruit set or none.
Yeast infection of stored white mustard seed
Fungal diseaseNematospora sinecauda, a yeast introduced by the bug Nysius niger · Stored seed
In some years an important disease of stored white mustard seed: a severe infestation makes the seed unfit for human consumption. The infection is started by a bug, and then spreads easily through the stored seed.
How growers manage it:Few insects are involved in starting the infection, so the only prevention the handbook names is controlling flixweed, the weed that is the other host.
Late blight of celery
Fungal diseaseSeptoria apiicola · Leaves; carried on the seed
A serious disease of celery in humid conditions, marking the leaves with many small, pale brown spots with dark centres. The fungus is seed-borne and also survives on plant refuse in the soil. The handbooks describe it on celery grown as a vegetable.
How growers manage it:Seed from a reliable source, seed treatment and crop rotation are the recommended practices, with wider spacing in the rainy season so that air moves through the crop.
Climate
Observed, projected and extreme events kept apart, each with its confidence.
Event · North-eastern Madagascar (vanilla-growing villages) · 2017 · medium confidence
Cyclone Enawo struck Madagascar’s vanilla coast in March 2017. In a study of two vanilla-growing villages, 68% of households reported crop losses from its strong winds and heavy rain, and the COVID-19 restrictions arrived while they were still recovering. A study of two villages, not a regional damage survey — but it shows how a single storm reaches the smallholders who grow most of the world’s vanilla.
Event · Grenada · September 2004 · high confidence
Hurricane Ivan devastated Grenada’s nutmeg trees in 2004. The United Nations assessment that followed recorded the collapse of an industry on which an estimated 30,720 people had depended directly or indirectly, the loss of work in the nutmeg pools where women sorted and processed the crop, and farmers doubting whether to replant a tree that takes years to bear. In one community, cinnamon-bark harvesting stopped because most of the trees had been uprooted or badly damaged.
Observed · Indian Cardamom Hills, Kerala and Tamil Nadu · 1958–2017 · medium confidence
Observed records for 1958–2017 show annual rainfall in the Indian Cardamom Hills falling by about 13.6 mm a year, with the number of rainy days down by nearly 20 over forty years, and minimum and mean temperatures rising by decade. In the same records, excessive south-west monsoon rain correlated negatively with cardamom yield and slightly warmer temperatures weakly positively — a correlation for one region, not a demonstration of cause.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · Italy · to 2055 and 2085 · low confidence
A species-distribution model of saffron in Italy projects the climatically suitable area growing from about 90,000 km² now to about 124,000 km² by mid-century, with suitability shifting from lowlands and coasts towards the hills and mountains of the Apennines. It rests on one climate model and one emissions scenario, and the model’s predictive performance was moderate, so it is a direction rather than a forecast — and it concerns Italy only.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · China · 2030s and 2050s · low confidence
A species-distribution model of red huajiao in China puts today’s highly suitable area at about 169,850 km², mainly in western Sichuan (Hanyuan), Gansu, eastern Qinghai, Shaanxi and south-western Shanxi, with the temperature of the coldest part of the year the strongest influence. It projects that area growing by between 1.85% (2030s, low emissions) and 18.49% (2050s, high emissions), and its centre shifting. It rests on one climate model, and it maps climatic suitability, not where the crop will be grown or how much it will yield.
Event · Kerala, India · June–August 2018 · high confidence
From 1 June to mid-August 2018 Kerala received rain about 42 per cent above normal, and in the first three weeks of August about 164 per cent above — its worst flooding in nearly a century, with landslides across the hill districts. The post-disaster assessment prepared for the state government recorded 14,650 ha of pepper affected out of 85,210 ha under the crop, put the damage to pepper at INR 259 crore, and attributed 19 per cent of all lost crop production to pepper, second only to banana. Idukki and Wayanad, where pepper, cardamom, tea and coffee are the main crops, were among the worst hit. The assessment gives no separate figures for cardamom, ginger or turmeric.
Observed · Idukki high ranges and Kerala, India · 1950–2020 · medium confidence
Station records from the Indian Cardamom Research Institute show the daily temperature range in the Idukki high ranges widening between 1989 and 2020: maximum temperatures rose by about 0.25 °C a decade while minimum temperatures fell by about 0.31 °C a decade. Across Kerala, mean temperature rose 0.65 °C between 1956 and 2014, and annual rainfall declined by about 17 mm a decade between 1950 and 2018 while post-monsoon rain increased. The authors regard the widening range as a threat to cardamom and pepper, which they class as temperature-sensitive; the study measures the climate, not a yield response, and it notes that Kerala’s cardamom output rose over the same decades.
Event · Kerala, India · 2016 · medium confidence
After a deficient monsoon in 2016 the post-monsoon rains failed across Kerala, with a deficit of 63 per cent, and with no summer showers almost all surface water dried up — a drought the authors call rare in the state’s history. They report that cardamom, like cocoa, was affected in the summers of 2004, 2012 and 2016, when temperatures ran 1–3 °C above normal, and that heavy groundwater pumping for irrigation in the high ranges aggravated the shortage. The effect on cardamom is stated, not quantified.
Event · Grenada · July 2005 · high confidence
Hurricane Emily crossed Grenada on 14 July 2005, ten months after Ivan. The regional assessment found the surviving nutmeg little affected — the equivalent of 11.6 acres damaged, from toppled trees to lost fruit and blossom, out of about 3600 acres left standing — but the storm destroyed many of the quick cash crops, bananas and vegetables, that farmers had planted to earn an income while waiting for nutmeg to recover. The same assessment revised the loss of nutmeg to Ivan from the 90 per cent first estimated to 70 per cent of 12,000 acres.
Event · Central Highlands, Vietnam · 2015–2016 · high confidence
The drought that accompanied the 2015–16 El Niño did its greatest damage in Vietnam’s Central Highlands to perennial cash crops, coffee and pepper above all. Provincial figures gathered by the Food and Agriculture Organization to mid-May 2016 put about 9700 ha of pepper in Dak Lak and 1650 ha in Gia Lai in one of three loss classes, with 300 ha and 73 ha respectively losing more than 70 per cent; communities interviewed in the Central Highlands reported losing 79 per cent of their pepper yield. Many plantations were destroyed outright and would need complete replanting. These are figures from interviews with officials and focus groups, not a field survey.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · China · 2041–2060 and 2081–2100 · low confidence
A species-distribution model of tsaoko in China puts the climatically suitable area today at about 423,000 km², of which some 138,000 km² is highly suitable, mainly in Yunnan, southern Guizhou and western Guangxi; seasonal temperature swings and the rain of the driest quarter are the strongest influences. Under a low-emissions scenario it projects the suitable area growing by about 22,500 km² by mid-century and 107,000 km² by the end of the century, and moving northward. This is a model of where the climate could suit the plant, built from occurrence records; it is not a forecast of where tsaoko will be grown or of how much will be harvested.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · Neotropics (Mexico to Brazil) · to 2050 · low confidence
This concerns wild vanilla, not vanilla farms. Species-distribution models for eleven wild Vanilla species of the American tropics, and for the bees that pollinate four of them, project mixed fortunes for the orchids by 2050 — some losing up to 53 per cent of their climatically suitable range, others gaining — but a decline for every pollinator modelled, of 7 to 71 per cent. The overlap between orchid and pollinator shrinks most, by 60–90 per cent, for species known to rely on a single pollinator. The models describe climatic suitability, not observed populations, and cultivated vanilla, which is pollinated by hand, is outside their scope; the wild species matter to the crop as a source of genes for breeding.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · Nepal · 2050 · medium confidence
A modelling study of 29 traded medicinal and aromatic plants of Nepal found timur to have the largest climatically suitable area of any of them, about 23,500 km², and projected it to shrink to about 21,500 km² by 2050 under a medium emissions pathway — a loss of roughly 2000 km². The study averaged twelve climate models and seven modelling methods, which is why it is graded above single-model studies. It maps where the climate could suit the shrub, not where it grows or how much fruit is gathered, and timur is harvested from the wild.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, Central Zagros, Iran · 2050s and 2070s · low confidence
A species-distribution model of wild Persian shallot in one province of the Central Zagros finds almost the whole province climatically suitable today, about 16,000 km², and projects that range to contract by between 29.6 and 55.1 per cent by the 2050s and 2070s, depending on the emissions scenario, with suitable ground shifting from west to east. It uses a single climate model, and it describes climatic suitability for a plant that is dug from the wild — not a harvest forecast. The authors note that over-collection is already reducing populations.
Observed · Razavi and South Khorasan provinces, Iran · 1985–2015 · low confidence
Only the English abstract of this Iranian study could be read. It reports that drought indices calculated from thirty years of monthly rainfall at six stations in Iran’s main saffron provinces moved in step with an index of saffron yield, and that over the last ten years of the record drought was significantly correlated with a relative decline in yield in the saffron-growing districts; droughts in the period were classed as severe to very severe. The same abstract concludes that saffron production was only weakly sensitive to drought. It establishes an association in one region and gives no figure for the size of the loss.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · Southern China · 2041–2060 and 2081–2100 · low confidence
A species-distribution model of Chinese cassia places about 706,000 km² of highly suitable climate in southern China today, chiefly in Guangxi and Guangdong, with rainfall, temperature and soil the main influences. Under future scenarios it shows suitable conditions moving northward towards the Yangtze, with about 313,000 km² of newly suitable ground by the end of the century under high emissions. It uses a single climate model. It is a statement about where conditions could suit the tree, not a forecast of bark harvests; the same study found bark from its highly suitable zone richer in cinnamaldehyde than bark from marginal zones.
Modelled suitability, not a harvest forecast · China · 2050s and 2090s · low confidence
A species-distribution model of open-field chilli growing in China finds about 4.4 million km², 46 per cent of the country, climatically suitable today, and projects little change: under most scenarios the suitable area is slightly larger than now by the 2050s and 2090s, the largest gain in the 2050s being under one per cent, and 93 per cent of today’s suitable area stays suitable in every scenario. The uncertain ground lies along the northern edge. The projections rest on a single climate model. This models where the climate would allow chilli in the open field; it says nothing about yields, and nothing about heat during flowering, which the crop’s agronomy shows to be its sensitive point.
Event · Cardamom tracts of the Western Ghats, southern India · 1982–1983 · medium confidence
Cardamom forms its flowering shoots on the showers that fall between January and May, and fails when they do. A review of weather and plantation crops in India’s meteorological journal records that the drought of 1982–83 — unprecedented in the summer of 1983 — set back growth and yield in Coorg and the other cardamom tracts of southern India and killed as much as half the plants on some estates. The same review finds cardamom production in Kerala closely tied to how dry the months from December to May are, and credits the unusual rain of March 2008 with raising the following crop by 20–30 per cent.
Event · Wayanad, Kerala, India · Summer 2004 · medium confidence
Established pepper vines tolerate a dry summer better than most plantation crops of the humid tropics; young vines do not. The review records high mortality among young pepper in the prolonged summer droughts of 1983, 2004 and 2013, and states that pepper gardens were wiped out in Wayanad district in the summer of 2004, where the dry spell met poor management. It gives no count of the vines or area lost.
Observed · Kerala, India · 1952–2008 · medium confidence
Pepper’s yield in Kerala follows the timing of rain more than its total. Rain of about 70 mm within three weeks sets the vine flowering; if such summer showers are followed by a dry spell, spike growth and berry development stop. Reading the state’s productivity record from 1952–53 to 2006–07 against the weather, the review attributes the poor crops of 1970, 1977, 1984, 1986, 1997, 2001 and 2008 to summer showers and the good crops of 1989 and 1998 to their absence. It adds that monsoon rainfall over Kerala has declined over sixty years while temperatures have risen. The pairing of years with weather is the author’s reading of a chart, not a statistical test.
Wild populations
Published assessments of plants in the wild — the wild-gathered spices and the wild relatives of crops. A threatened wild species says nothing about the supply of its cultivated descendant.
Vanilla section Xanata (wild species related to the crop) · Of nine species assessed: one Critically Endangered, seven Endangered, one Data Deficient · IUCN Red List, as consulted in November 2022 by de Oliveira and colleagues, 2022
A wild relative of the crop, not the crop.
These are the wild orchids of tropical America closest to cultivated vanilla, not the vines in plantations. A review of the crop’s wild relatives found that only nine species of the section had been assessed for the Red List: Vanilla cribbiana is Critically Endangered, seven are Endangered and one is Data Deficient. A later genetic study of two of them in Costa Rica, Vanilla odorata and Vanilla pompona, likewise gives both as Endangered. Their value to the crop is as a source of genes: vanilla cultivation rests heavily on clonal material of a single species, whose gene pool the review describes as eroded.
Garcinia indica · Vulnerable (IUCN); Vulnerable in Karnataka and Kerala, Near Threatened in Maharashtra · IUCN Red List (2020) and state assessment workshops of 1999–2001, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2020
The wild form of a plant that is also cultivated.
A consolidated list of India’s threatened medicinal plants records the species as Vulnerable on the Red List, and state-level assessment workshops rated it Vulnerable in Karnataka and Kerala in 1999 and Near Threatened in Maharashtra in 2001. The assessments concern wild populations; they say nothing about trees in cultivation.
Garcinia gummi-gutta · Near Threatened in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu (state assessments) · State conservation assessment workshops of 1998–1999, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 1999
The wild form of a plant that is also cultivated.
State-level assessment workshops rated wild Garcinia gummi-gutta Near Threatened in Tamil Nadu in 1998 and in Karnataka and Kerala in 1999. The compilation that reports this lists no global Red List category for the species, and places it among Indian plants in high commercial demand.
Zanthoxylum armatum · Least Concern (IUCN); Endangered or Vulnerable in five Indian state assessments · IUCN Red List (2020) and state assessment workshops of 2003–2015, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2020
The spice is gathered from these wild populations.
The global and the local picture differ. The Red List category recorded for the species is Least Concern, but Indian state assessments rate it Endangered in Himachal Pradesh (2003 and 2010) and Vulnerable in Jammu and Kashmir (2003), Uttarakhand (2003), Odisha (2007) and Nagaland (2015). It is a shrub gathered from the wild and traded — a study of Nepal counts it among that country’s major wild-harvested aromatic plants — so regional ratings bear directly on the supply of the spice.
Juniperus communis · Least Concern (IUCN); Vulnerable in Himachal Pradesh (state assessment, 2010) · IUCN Red List (2020) and a Himachal Pradesh assessment workshop of 2010, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2020
The spice is gathered from these wild populations.
Common juniper is Least Concern on the Red List; a state assessment in Himachal Pradesh nonetheless rated its Himalayan populations Vulnerable in 2010. The example shows why a global category does not describe every population from which berries are gathered.
Piper longum · Endangered in Odisha and Tamil Nadu, Vulnerable in Chhattisgarh, Near Threatened in Kerala (state assessments) · State conservation assessment workshops of 1995–2007, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2007
The wild form of a plant that is also cultivated.
Indian long pepper grows wild in India and is also widely cultivated there. State assessments rated its wild populations Endangered in Tamil Nadu (1995) and Odisha (2007), Vulnerable in Chhattisgarh (2003) and Near Threatened in Kerala (1995). The compilation lists no global Red List category for it and counts it among medicinal plants traded in India at more than 100 tonnes a year.
Piper barberi · Endangered (IUCN); Critically Endangered in Kerala and Tamil Nadu (state assessments) · IUCN Red List (2020) and state assessment workshops of 1998–1999, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2020
A wild relative of the crop, not the crop.
A wild pepper of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is recorded as Endangered on the Red List and was rated Critically Endangered in Tamil Nadu in 1998 and Kerala in 1999. This is a wild relative; cultivated black pepper is not threatened by its status.
Cinnamomum wightii, Cinnamomum sulphuratum and Cinnamomum macrocarpum · Endangered (C. wightii); Vulnerable (C. sulphuratum, C. macrocarpum) · IUCN Red List (2020) and state assessment workshops of 1998–1999, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2020
A wild relative of the crop, not the crop.
Three wild cinnamons of southern India appear in the consolidated list of the country’s threatened medicinal plants: Cinnamomum wightii as Endangered, and Cinnamomum sulphuratum and Cinnamomum macrocarpum as Vulnerable, with matching ratings from state assessments in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They are forest relatives of the cinnamon of commerce, which is grown as a crop and appears in the same compilation without any threat category.
Myristica dactyloides · Vulnerable (IUCN); Vulnerable in Karnataka and Kerala (state assessments, 1999) · IUCN Red List (2020) and state assessment workshops of 1999, as compiled by Gowthami and colleagues, 2020
A wild relative of the crop, not the crop.
A wild nutmeg of southern India, recorded as Vulnerable on the Red List and in the Karnataka and Kerala assessments of 1999. It is a relative of the cultivated nutmeg, which came from the Moluccas and is known only from cultivation.
Allium stipitatum · Endangered in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province (the authors’ own assessment) · Khajoei Nasab and Zeraatkar, from a decade of field study in the province, 2025
The spice is gathered from these wild populations.
Persian shallot is dug from wild stands in the Zagros mountains. Researchers who studied it for a decade in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province report that indiscriminate harvesting and the destruction of its habitat have brought many populations into decline, and classify it as endangered there; less than 2 per cent of its habitat in the province lies inside protected areas. This is a provincial judgement by the study’s authors, not a Red List assessment, and it concerns one province of Iran.
How production is counted
Official statistics rarely count spices the way a cook would. What each category covers, and how firmly it corresponds to a spice.
| Category | Dataset | Spices it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Pepper (Piper spp.), raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Black pepper (mostly this spice); White pepper (shared with others); Green peppercorn (shared with others) |
| Chillies and peppers, dry (Capsicum spp., Pimenta spp.), raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Chilli powder (mostly this spice); Paprika (shared with others); Allspice (inside a residual category) |
| Vanilla, raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Vanilla (this spice alone) |
| Cinnamon and cinnamon-tree flowers, raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Cassia (mostly this spice); Cinnamon (Ceylon) (shared with others) |
| Cloves (whole stems), raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Cloves (this spice alone) |
| Nutmeg, mace, cardamoms, raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Green cardamom (shared with others); Nutmeg (shared with others); Mace (shared with others); Black cardamom (shared with others) |
| Anise, badian, coriander, cumin, caraway, fennel and juniper berries, raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Cumin (shared with others); Coriander seed (shared with others); Fennel seed (shared with others); Aniseed (shared with others); Star anise (shared with others); Caraway (shared with others) |
| Ginger, raw | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Ginger (this spice alone) |
| Other stimulant, spice and aromatic crops, n.e.c. | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Turmeric (inside a residual category); Fenugreek (inside a residual category); Saffron (inside a residual category) |
| Mustard seed | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Mustard seed (this spice alone) |
| Poppy seed | FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL) | Poppy seed (this spice alone) |
| Pepper | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Black pepper (mostly this spice) |
| Cardamom (small) | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Green cardamom (this spice alone) |
| Cardamom (large) | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Black cardamom (this spice alone) |
| Chilli | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Chilli powder (mostly this spice) |
| Ginger (fresh) | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Ginger (this spice alone) |
| Turmeric (dry) | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Turmeric (this spice alone) |
| Coriander | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Coriander seed (this spice alone) |
| Cumin | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Cumin (this spice alone) |
| Celery | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Celery seed (mostly this spice) |
| Fennel | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Fennel seed (this spice alone) |
| Fenugreek | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Fenugreek (this spice alone) |
| Garlic | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Garlic (this spice alone) |
| Tamarind | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Tamarind (this spice alone) |
| Clove | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Cloves (this spice alone) |
| Nutmeg | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Nutmeg (this spice alone) |
| Ajwain seed | Spices Board India, spice-wise area and production | Ajwain (this spice alone) |
The figures themselves are on each spice’s page, with the year they describe. The source library records each dataset’s release and licence.
Questions this page answers
- how do spices grow
- what plants do spices come from
- how is saffron grown
- why is vanilla hand pollinated
- where are spices grown