Last edited by shiny on 8 Nov 2026. View history
Licorice
Licorice
How to sow licorice: Direct seed indoors (transplant seedlings outside after hardening off) or division
Sun requirement for licorice: Plant in Full Sun
Licorice is a herbaceous perennial legume plant grown for it's root, from which a sweet flavor can be extracted. The flavor is used to flavor tobacco, desserts, and teas. The root has antiviral, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory properties. It is used in Ayurveda to rejuvenate and in Traditional Chinese Medicine to carry herbal mixtures to the 12 "regular meridians". The plant has opposite, pinnate leaves like a bean plant, and purple to pale blue flowers. Licorice is distinct from the Licorice Plant (Helichrysum petiolare) which is a garden ornamental that can sometimes have a licorice scent. It is not related to anise, star anise, or fennel, which also have licorice flavors. The wrinkled brown roots have yellow flesh and can grow to 120cm deep and 10m wide in optimal, unobstructed growing conditions. They take 2-3 years to be ready to harvest. Plants are hardy to -15°C. Seeds have poor germination and benefit from scarification and cold-stratification.
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Licorice facts
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For licorice, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 90 days at its best temperature, about 1305 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your licorice will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow licorice
Sunniness
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Licorice plantings
Where licorice grow
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Who's planted licorice
- tiki19 Drylands unirrigated food forest · Thornlie, Perth,...
Licorice harvests
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Glycyrrhiza glabra L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Fabales Leguminosae |
|---|---|
| Optimal temperature | 14 - 25 °C |
| Absolute temperature | 5 - 30 °C |
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -10 °C |
| Optimal rainfall | 500 - 1000 mm/year |
| Absolute rainfall | 300 - 1200 mm/year |
| Optimal soil pH | 6.5 - 7.5 |
| Absolute soil pH | 5.5 - 8.2 |
| Crop cycle | 90 - 150 days |
| Life form | herb, sub-shrub |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | long day (>14 hours) |
| Optimal light | very bright |
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