Guar is a plant, which is native to India as well as Pakistan since olden times. Texas, Malawi, Sudan and South Africa are some other countries where Guar is found but at least quantity. Guar is a seasonal crop cultivated once in a year. Its sowing is done in the month of July and harvesting is done in the month of November. The Guar pods are of 5 to 8 cm long. It can be industrially used as a good source of gum extraction or simply be used as green vegetable for consumption or animal feeds.

The extraction of gum from the Guar plant is done from “Cyamopsis Tetragonalobus”, the seed of Guar. The plant of Guar approximately stands to the height of four feet with characteristics of large broad leaves and clustering pods looking like beans. The seeds inside the pods look grayish white and resemble peas. The plant of Guar is strong enough to resist droughts or aridity. Normally it is grown in the semi arid areas of India and Pakistan.

The plant of Guars can grow best in sandy type of soils. This plant requires abundance of sunshine and a moderate rate of rainfall. Over precipitation reduces the number of seeds per pod yields and the plant turns out leafy. This condition will turn down the productivity.

Guar is sown with the end of the rainfall in July and its harvesting starts from late October to starting of November. The pods are exposed in sunlight to make it dry and after collecting the pods manually from the plants, it is forwarded to the industries for further industrial processing. The new plant of Guar is a delicious vegetable dish for Indians.

The diameter of a Guar seed measures approximately 2mm to 3mm dicotyledonously. The seeds share the major portion of 60% to 70% of the pod’s weight. The major source of Guar gum is the germ, which is remained entirely enclosed with endosperms of two equal halves. The fibrous character of husk or skin of the seed is made up of thin flip of material like cellulose. Roasting, differentia attrition, sieving and polishing are the complete industrial process of extracting gum from the seeds of Guar. The germ is extracted away from the endosperms by breaking the seeds. The broken two halves of the seeds known as the undehusked Guar split are collected by removing the fine fibrous layers forming a part of the husk and separating them after polishing. Now, the result obtained is the Refined Splits of Guar. The husk and germ are a good source of protein and it is a nutritious cattle feed. About 55% of oil and albuminoidal content is found in the larger particles of germ while the smaller particles are of 40% of it and 25% content of oil and albuminoids in the husk.

The derived refined Guar splits are further diminished into powder forms by certain mechanical processing as per the requirement of the end products. Edicol is an example of high quality gum product from Guar. Edicol is used for the application of foods, feeds, and pharmaceuticals. Varying the viscosity, rates of hydration and particle size distribution can tamper the quality and quantity of the Guar gum. These changes can be intentionally made in order to meet the desired configuration. Certain quality of gums like hydrolysed, oxidized, carboxyalkyl, hydroxyalkyl, borated, sulphated, catatonic and various other combinations are manufactured commercially for a numbers of applications in industries.