Taking advantage of the fact that it was not yet time to plant seedlings, the second uncle and aunt planted sweet potatoes first. As early as a month or two ago, the second aunt had already raised sweet potato seedlings. Everyone should also know that planting sweet potatoes is generally planted with vines.

In Chujiazhai, sweet potatoes are divided into two periods, one can be eaten very early, and there is a harvest in April and May, which is early. Its flesh is very powdery, white, and the yield is also very high, and this is generally used for roasting sweet potatoes outside.

There are two other types, which are planted in April and May, and of course, you have to raise the seedlings about a month in advance, and the harvest will not be until July or August. One is red meat and the other is purple meat. Red meat is generally used for drying, purple meat is usually used for boiling, and the most fragrant is also purple meat, but the yield is also the lowest.

After eating, the second aunt went out with a dung basket and went to cut sweet potato vines first.

The second uncle, Chu Jiaqiang and others carried farm tools to the field, this year, don't plant too many sweet potatoes, don't raise pigs or cattle, just plant enough for people to eat.

Sweet potato has strong adaptability and outstanding resistance to stress, and has a wide range of adaptability to soil and other ecological factors in addition to strict temperature requirements. It is more drought-tolerant, and although it needs more fertilizer, it is barren-tolerant.

As a vegetative propagating crop, roots, stems and leaves can be used as reproductive organs. In field production, sweet potato is mainly propagated by tuber seedlings.

A potato nugget generally has five or six columns of longitudinally arranged lateral roots, and after the lateral roots die, they leave slightly depressed root marks, and the adventitious bud primordium located near the root marks germinates and penetrates the potato skin, that is, germination. Adventitious buds are distributed on tubers, generally with more head than middle and tail, facing the back of the sunny side of the soil surface than towards the ventral surface of the yin side facing the center of the ridge), and the germination of tuber roots has a apical advantage.

"Do you have to raise seedlings? Can't you just grow it with potato chunks?" Li Quan asked.

"It's not impossible to use potato wedges, but the effect is poor, and the amount is large. If you use potato wedges. The nugget is called a mother potato, and it will continue to grow. After planting, some small sweet potatoes will indeed be derived, but they are destined not to grow, because the fertility is robbed of the mother potato, and the small sweet potato is just dependent on the mother potato to grow. However. Old potato heads are not tasty. Chu Jiaqiang said.

Old potato heads. That is, the mother potato will grow very big at that time, and it is not surprising that a sweet potato football is big, but it is not delicious, even the pig does not like it very much, let alone people?

"Also, how many sweet potatoes do you have to plant here? Seedlings are different, the potato vines are cut, and after a while, they will grow back and cultivate a piece of land. You might be able to plant an entire mountain of sweet potatoes. This is also the reason why this thing was quickly popularized when it was first introduced in ancient times. Chu Jiaqiang then explained.

When cultivating potato seedlings, we are also very particular, first of all, we select potato seeds, and the seed potatoes are selected with the characteristics of this variety, bright skin color, strong vitality, and a single weight of 150,250 grams of healthy seed potatoes. Strictly remove diseased, dark skin, cold damage, soft potato pieces, excessive water loss, heat damage and broken skin potato pieces.

The local government should also choose a plot of land with leeward and sunny conditions, high and dry terrain, good drainage, convenient management, and no potato crops as seedbeds, and the length of the seedbed depends on the topography and needs. Use a shovel to shoot slightly. A 40 cm deep trench is opened around the side of the bed to facilitate drainage.

The second aunt cut down those strong seedlings, which are conducive to the formation of early and thick adventitious roots, so that the seedlings can survive quickly, produce potatoes early and more, and have a high yield. The standard for strong seedlings is smooth stem bark, large and thick leaves, and juicy.

to the ground. Chu Jiaqiang first turned over the weeds on the side of the ground and came out of a row of ground. At this time, the second uncle used an iron shovel to build a ditch on it, and these ditches are not very deep, they are used to fill in weeds. Those weeds are good green manure on their own. It can be used rationally, and this is the wisdom of farmers.

"Help, get the weeds I got rid of into the ditch, make sure it's even." Chu Jiaqiang shouted to Zhou Furong and the others.

Then, he asked the others to turn the weeds out of the way he had just done. He still has something to do, that is, after the weeds are filled in the ditch, he puts a little grass ash as fertilizer, which is a good organic fertilizer, and then goes back to the ditch to ridge.

If the previous crop is a vernalization crop, the furrow can be rotated every other year and the method of deep ploughing at the bottom of the furrow can be adopted. It is best to carry out land preparation and ridge making when the soil moisture is suitable on sunny days, and increase the application of organic fertilizer to make a high ridge with a height of 30 cm and a width of about 1 meter, which is conducive to soil looseness and good aeration.

"It's quite complicated, isn't this sweet potato easy to grow? Why is it so hard to serve?" Zhou Furong muttered.

"There's nothing wrong with easy growth, but you want it to be productive, without a little effort? Otherwise, everyone will grow sweet potatoes directly, and there will be no famine in this world. Chu Jiaqiang said.

The second aunt quickly picked up a load of potato vines, and Mrs. Wan and other old people helped with cuttings. Originally, Chu Jiaqiang asked them not to come, but these people were stunned to come over, saying that if they didn't move, their bones would be about to rust. Although they are rich and expensive now, they have not done this kind of thing before, so they can do well without being taught by their second aunt.

Cuttings should also be noted, the fertile land should be thin, and the thin land should be dense; The early insertion is slightly thinner, and the late insertion is slightly denser; Late maturity and large productivity per plant should be sparsely planted, and on the contrary, it should be planted densely.

The cutting method generally adopts the oblique insertion method, and the potato seedlings with 46 nodes and a length of 1520 cm are inserted into the soil at a certain angle to the ground at an angle of about 3 sections. For deep soil layer, good fertilizer and water conditions and early planting, the shallow flat insertion method can be adopted, with 58 nodes, 2025 cm long potato seedlings, 35 of them are horizontal shallow pressure in the ridge, the depth is 34 cm, so that each node of the potato seedlings is at the same depth, and evenly press the soil.

For arid areas, thin soil and dry season planting, it is advisable to use the direct insertion method, and the potato seedlings with a length of 1015 cm and about 35 knots are directly inserted into the soil for 23 sections.

In order to ensure the preservation of seedlings after sweet potato cuttings, "four non-planting" should be achieved, that is, no planting in heavy rain, no planting in the northwest wind, no planting in strong sunlight, and no planting in dry soil for a long time, so as to prevent lack of plants and broken ridges.

"Last time I saw a very special planting method in one place, people's sweet potatoes are not in the soil, they are hung directly, it is easy to harvest sweet potatoes, and you can see the growth of sweet potatoes at any time." Chen Wu said.

"You're talking about soilless culture? That thing is high-tech, and rural people can afford it? There is no land in the cities, so we have to do this, and the countryside is full of fields, so there is no need to do that. Hong Lao smiled. That kind of planting method, he has not never seen before, it is indeed quite novel.

Chu Jiaqiang nodded, agreeing with what Hong Lao said. (To be continued)

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