Dill information

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Dill

Dill (Anethum graveloens Linn.) is an annual aromatic branched herb known for culinary use since ancient times. It is a native of south-east Europe and is cultivated commercially in most parts of Europe, particularly The Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Romania, South Russia, Bulgaria and on a lesser scale in France, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Spain, UK, Turkey and the United States of America. A variant called east Indian dill or Sowa (Anethum graveloens var sowa Roxb. ex, Flem.) occurs in India and is cultivated for its foliage as a cold weather crop throughout the Indian sub-continent, Malaysian archipelago and Japan. The earliest reference to use of dill seed in medicine goes back to ‘Charak Samhita’ (700 BC), an ancient renowned medical treatise on Indian medicinal plants.

Dill foliage, fruits and their volatile oil are used extensively for culinary and medicinal purposes. The fresh aromatic leaves are used in flavouring of soups, sausages, curries, gravies, salad, marinades and pickles; the leafy stems and tops are used in flavouring vinegar, pickled cucumber and fermented cabbages, whereas the seed is used for flavouring meat. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the leaves are steamed with rice whereas fruits are used in flavouring native confectionery. Balkan countries use dill in flavouring yogurt, sour cream and wine. In Sweden, bread is flavoured with dill seed. Dill fruit faintly resembles caraway in odour but has a less sharp taste. It is a popular condiment in Asian countries and is used in seasoning several types of processed meat. The leaf oil has largely replaced the use of the fresh herb in the food industry in Europe.

The International Trade Centre has brought out a material survey of four west European countries (France, UK, The Netherlands and Germany) estimating an overall demand of freeze-dry herb to be less than 300 tonnes per annum. France produces a small quantity and imports it from Egypt, Israel, The Netherlands and Morocco. The Netherlands and Germany are larger producers and import a part of their demand from Hungary. The USA is said to import between 70 and 100 kg of herb oil annually, largely from Hungary. India exports 500 to 800 tonnes of seed annually to west Asian countries and a small quantity of dill seed oil to western Europe. World production of dill weed oil is reported as 80 tonnes and dill seed oil as 70 tonnes; the seed oil is produced mainly in India, Russia and Poland.

Dill is characterized by long dissected leaves and compound radiating umbels. It grows to between 1 and 1.2m in height under cultivation. Dill is an annual glabrous, long-day plant with long fusiform (10-15 cm) tap root with few secondary rootlets. The stem is erect, dull-green, glaucous, cylindrical, fistular with longitudinal light-green streaks, up to 1.5 cm thick around the base. It is subdichotomously branched, usually above the basal few nodes. Leaves are decompound, tripinnati-partite with ultimate segment 5-15 (.20)mm long and 1-1.5mm wide. Flowers are small, bisexual, more in outer unbellules (30-40) than inner ones (15-20), and opens centripetally. The fruit is oblong, slightly plano-convex in shape, dorsally compressed, 3-4mm long and 1.5-3.0mm broad, glabrous, with three prominent longitudinal ridges, developed into thin broad wings, 0.25-0.5mm wide. Dill flowers in June-August and fruiting takes place in August-October in Europe, while it is February-March and March-April respectively in India.

In the Sowa plant, the fruits are longer, 3-5(.5.5) . 1.5-2.5 (.3)mm in dimension, with three longitudinal ridges on the dorsal side more pronounced than the (European) dill. The carpophore holds two mericarps more firmly and consequently these remain joined together in the fruit for a longer time. The vittae has irregular marginal walls in contrast to straight walls in the dill. It has a number of local races like Vizak Sowa, Variyali Sowa and Ghoda Sowa distinguished by the oil composition of their fruits.

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