{"id":49678,"date":"2025-06-10T15:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T09:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=49678"},"modified":"2025-06-10T16:13:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T10:43:36","slug":"heeng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/heeng\/","title":{"rendered":"Heeng"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Heeng Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Recently, the first flowering and seed set of Heeng or asafoetida (Ferula assa-foetida)\u00a0heengat Palampur was reported on by CSIR, showing heeng can indeed be successfully cultivated in India.<\/p>\n<h2>About Heeng<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a perennial plant that\u00a0<strong>typically takes five years to mature<\/strong>\u00a0and start flowering.<\/li>\n<li>It thrives in\u00a0<strong>cold, arid environments<\/strong>\u00a0suited to the native regions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Required Climatic conditions for Heeng<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Soil:<\/strong>\u00a0The plant prefers\u00a0<strong>sandy, well-drained soil<\/strong>\u00a0with low moisture.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rainfall:<\/strong>\u00a0Ideally requires annual rainfall of 200 mm or less, though it can tolerate up to 300 mm in cultivated regions like the Indian Himalaya.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Temperature:<\/strong>\u00a0It flourishes in temperatures of 10-20\u00b0 C, tolerates highs of up to 40\u00b0 C, and withstands winter lows down to \u20134\u00b0 C.<\/li>\n<li>In\u00a0<strong>extremely dry and cold weather<\/strong>, heeng plants typically become dormant to survive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Extraction of Heeng<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The final product obtained from the plant, asafoetida, is derived from an\u00a0<strong>oleo-gum resin extracted from<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>plant\u2019s thick, fleshy taproot and rhizome<\/strong>, which makes up 40-64% of the dried gum.<\/li>\n<li>Incisions are made in the taproot, allowing the milky latex to exude and harden into a gum-like substance.<\/li>\n<li>This resin is dried and processed into powder or\u00a0<strong>crystal form<\/strong>\u00a0for culinary and medicinal use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Heeng Cultivation in India<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>India depended on imports<\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0<strong>Afghanistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan,<\/strong>\u00a0among others.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Although there are about 130 species of Ferula found in the world, but only Ferula assa-foetidais the economically important species used for the production of asafoetida.<\/li>\n<li>In India, we\u00a0<strong>do not have Ferula assa-foetida<\/strong>, but other species\u00a0<strong>Ferula jaeschkeana<\/strong>\u00a0is reported from the\u00a0<strong>western Himalaya (<\/strong>Chamba, HP), and\u00a0<strong>Ferula narthex<\/strong>\u00a0from Kashmir and Ladakh, which are\u00a0<strong>not the species that yield asafoetida.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Heeng FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1:<\/strong>\u00a0What are the benefits of Heeng?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Being a rich source of carbohydrates, hing promotes metabolism. It is extremely beneficial in maintaining digestive health, promoting heart health and in improving brain function<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2:<\/strong>\u00a0Which state is famous for Heeng in India?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Himachal Pradesh<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/energy-and-environment\/the-story-of-how-heeng-came-to-be-successfully-cultivated-in-india\/article69671137.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heeng is a perennial plant that takes around five years to mature and begin flowering, commonly used for its pungent resin in cooking and traditional medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":49690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[776,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-49678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-heeng","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}