Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
Mentha, the mint genus grown in India mainly for menthol and mint oil, is a highly heterozygous crop, so seed raised plants do not stay true to the parent's oil quality and yield. Commercial cultivation therefore depends on vegetative propagation rather than true seed.
Step 2: Key Formula or Approach:
Mentha spreads naturally through creeping, horizontal underground and surface stems called stolons (also called suckers by farmers), which root at each node and can be separated and planted as fresh propagating material.
Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Farmers dig up healthy stolons from an established mentha field, cut them into pieces carrying nodes, and plant these directly in the new field, where each node sends up new shoots and roots. This keeps the oil quality and yield of a good clone stable across generations.
Seed propagation is avoided because segregation in the offspring would give unpredictable, often poor oil yielding plants. Root cutting is not how mentha multiplies naturally, since its propagating structures are stem derived stolons, not root pieces, and leaflets alone cannot regenerate a whole new plant.
Step 4: Final Answer:
Mentha is commercially raised through stolons.