How to plant imli

The simplest way to plant imli is to buy a healthy grafted sapling from a government or other reliable nursery and plant it at the start of the rains, in a large pit on land that drains well. Grafted trees come true to type and bear much earlier: a 2020 article in ICAR's Indian Horticulture magazine (Shankarprasad and Menon, Kerala) says grafted or budded plants start yielding about 3–4 years after planting, while seedling trees take 8–12 years and vary from tree to tree.

When to plant

TNAU gives June to December as the best planting period in Tamil Nadu. We found no state source with months for other regions, so take the following as a guide:

• North-west dry zone, northern plains and central India: July–August, early enough for the sapling to root before the first cold nights.
• The east and the southern peninsula: June–August.
• Tamil Nadu coast: TNAU's June–December window includes October–November, which suits only places like this, where the main rains come with the north-east monsoon.

These months are a guide: plant when the rains have properly wetted the soil in your district, and avoid the hot, dry months of April to June.

Pit, spacing and planting

• Sapling: choose a healthy graft with a clean, well-joined graft union, and rub off any shoots that come from below the joint (TNAU advises removing rootstock sprouts).
• Pit: TNAU suggests 1 m × 1 m × 1 m, filled with well-rotted farmyard manure and topsoil.
• Spacing: TNAU gives 8–10 m between trees, and ICRAF says plantations of seedling trees need at least 13 × 13 m. For a single garden tree, leave room for a very wide crown. These figures are only a rough starting point, not a safe distance from a house, wall, pipe or septic tank, so ask your local forest or horticulture office if space is tight.
• Planting: set the plant at the depth it stood in the bag, keep the graft joint above the soil, press the soil firmly, make a basin and water at once. TNAU says to support the graft with a stake immediately after planting. Fence it where goats or cattle roam, because ICRAF notes that the leaves have high fodder value (practical guidance).

Growing imli from seed

Imli grows easily from seed, but a seedling tree is slow and its fruit may not match its parent's. TNAU sows fresh seed in March–April after soaking it for 24 hours (in a cow-dung or cow-urine solution) and moves two-year-old seedlings to the field; PROSEA says the seed germinates within about 2 weeks of sowing. A seed-grown tree is fine for shade or a roadside, but for good pods choose a graft.

First-year watering (rough starting point)

Check the soil a few centimetres down near the roots: water deeply when the root zone is drying, skip watering after rain, and never let water stand around the stem. TNAU's orchard advice is regular watering about once a week. The intervals below are only a rough starting point, not trial results.

Season	Rough interval (check the soil first)
Monsoon (Jul–Sep)	Usually none; only in a long dry break
Post-monsoon and winter (Oct–Feb)	About every 1–2 weeks if the soil is dry
Spring (Mar–Apr)	About weekly
Summer (May–Jun)	About every 4–5 days in hot, dry places