Guar Gum History

Guar is a native to the Indian subcontinent. Guar is grown mainly in India, Pakistan, United States and also
in some part of Africa and Australia.
In old times, Guar was only used as rich protein to feed cattle. It is also used as green vegetable in India.
After Second World War there was major shortage of locust bean gum which adversely affected the textile
and paper industries. At that time Guar Gum was found as the most suitable substitute for scarce locust
bean gum. In 1953 the extraction technology of guar gum was commercialized in USA and India after
decade of period.
Guar Plant
The guar plant is an annual plant known as 'Cyamopsis
Tetragonaloba'. The important source of nutrition to human
and animals is the legume, it regenerates soil nitrogen and the
endosperm of guar seed is an important hydrocolloid widely
used across a broad spectrum of industries.
The guar plant flourishes in extremely drought resistant and
semiarid regions where most plants perish. It grows best in
sandy soils. The ideal areas for farming are West,
Northwest India and parts of Pakistan. The major processing
centers of Guar Gum are in the North Western states in India.
The guar plant grows from 2 feet to 9 feet high. The plants
flower buds start out white and change to a light pink as the
flower opens. The flowers turn deep purple and are followed by
fleshy seed pods which ripen and harvested in summer.
The seed pods grow in clusters giving guar the common name
cluster-bean. A gum extracted from the guar beans forms a gel
in water, commonly referred to as guar gum. Guar is extremely
drought resistant and thrives in semi-arid regions where few
plants thrive. When limited moisture is available the plant will stop growing but does not die. Guar gum is
also known as guarkernmehl, guaran, goma guar, gomme guar and galactomannan.

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Guar Harvesting period
A growing season of guar is 14 to 16 weeks and requires reasonably warm weather and moderate flashing
rainfall with plenty of sunshine. Too much rain can cause the plant to become more 'leafy' resulting thereby
reducing the number of pods or the number of seeds per pod which affects the size and yield of seeds. The
crop is generally sown after the monsoon rainfall in the second half of July to early August and is harvested
in late October early November. The Guar is a naturally rain fed crop.
Depending on the monsoon rainfall the total size of Guar crop varies
from year to year. After harvesting, when the pods become dry through
sunlight, they are beaten off and during this process, the seeds come
out of the pods.
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Guar Extraction Methodology
ontagion of the natural gums available at present occurs mostly due to poor handling. There are various
tools and system available through which natural gums can be extract completely hygienic from the tree.
Guar Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fabales
Family: Leguminosae
Tribe: Indigofereae
Genus: yamopsis
Species: . tetragonoloba
Botanical name: yamopsis tetragonolobus (L.)
Synonyms: yamopsis psoralioides L.
Part Used: Seeds
Vernacular Name: Guar
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Guar Standard Specification
Minimum standards for good quality guar gum have been defined in the United States F and by European
Union Specifications as under:
Moisture: 14% max. Ash (total): 1.5% max.
Acid Insoluble Residue: 4% max.
Galactomannan: 75% min.
Protein: 7% max.
Arsenic: 3 ppm max.
Lead: 10 ppm max.
Zinc: 25 ppm max.
Copper & Zinc: 50 ppm max.
Guar Gum Components
Guar Gum mainly consists of hydrocolloidal polysaccharide with a high molecular weight, which consists of
galactopyranose- and mannopyranose- units in glycoside linkage which can be chemically described as
galactomannan.
Name of Guar Gum in different countries
Arabic: & & &
ulgarian: IyHa ryap
atalan: Goma guar
hinese:
roatian: Guar guma
zech: Guar
Danish: Guargummi
Dutch: Guarpitmeel
Finnish: Guarkumi
French: Gomme de guar
German: Guarkernmehl
Greek: To ki ykoudp
Hebrew: Guar
Hindi:
Indonesian:
Italian: Guar
Japanese: VQ
orean: Guar
Latvian: Gura sve[us
Lithuanian: Guaro guma
Norwegian:
Polish: Gumy guar
Portuguese: Goma de Guar
Romanian: Guma de guar
Russian: Iyapoaan cHona
Serbian: Iyap ryHa
Slovak: Guar
Slovenian: Guma guar
Spanish: Goma guar
Swedish: Guarkrnmjl
Tagalog: Guar gum
Ukrainian: Iyapoaa cHona
Vietnamese: