21-inch ochroes for world record

Harold and Parbatie Boodoo show their 21-inch prized ochro, which they grow in their backyard garden at Temple Street, Duncan Village, San Fernando

The ochroes grow­ing in the back­yard of Harold and Par­batie Boodoo have again grown to ex­tra­or­di­nary lengths.
The last time the Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed their crop was in 2018 when the ochroes had grown to stag­ger­ing 20 inch­es but now a year lat­er, the ochroes have grown an inch longer.
Dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Par­batie said she was hop­ing that they could fi­nal­ly en­ter the Guin­ness World Book of Records.
The last time the en­try for an ap­pli­ca­tion was not pos­si­ble as Par­batie had har­vest­ed the ochro.
There is no record in the Guin­ness World Book of Records for the world longest ochro, al­so known as okra. How­ev­er, re­search shows that a Malaysian woman grew an ochro to a length of 18 inch­es while Sud­hish Ku­mar, of Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates broke the Li­ma World Record with ochro mea­sur­ing 16.3 inch­es.
Par­batie said her daugh­ter Kim­ber­ly Fung plans to make an ap­pli­ca­tion to the Guin­ness World Book of Records on their be­half. “We want to have an ad­ju­di­ca­tor come to our home at Tem­ple Street, Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do to view the ochroes. This is the first time the ochroes grew so long. It seems every time we plant they get longer and longer,” she said.
Harold, 76, said he spends most of his time car­ing for his plants in his lit­tle back­yard gar­den. “I talk to the plants a lot. Maybe that is why they grow so big,” Harold quipped.
He said the on­ly fer­tilis­er he us­es is Blauko­rn.
“I have the seeds. They are a va­ri­ety of ochroes called Deer­horn but it is not usu­al for them to grow this big,” Harold said.
He added that the few ochro trees in his yard pro­duce more than two dozen ochroes each.
“You know how much ochroes we gave away. It is amaz­ing how much these few trees pro­duce,” he added.
The cou­ple al­so said they want­ed re­searchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture to vis­it their home and con­duct tests to de­ter­mine how the soil was so fer­tile.
“This is nor­mal sap­atay clay. We don’t use any big set of fer­tilis­er. There must be some rea­son why the crops come so good. I think there should be some test­ing,” Boodoo said.
He al­so agreed to share some of his ochro seeds to the Min­istry to do ex­per­i­ments.
Source: Trinidad Guardian, April 2019