How to Grow Gastrodia? A Detailed Guide to Gastrodia Cultivation Techniques
When it comes to Gastrodia, I believe everyone is familiar with it, because it is quite common in our daily lives. Gastrodia has very high edible value, and eating it in moderation brings many benefits to the body, and there are also many ways to eat it. So how do you grow and cultivate Gastrodia? Let's find out together below!
How to Grow Gastrodia
1. Planting time and site selection. For mountainous areas, the suitable altitude is 300-1800-2600 m. In low-altitude areas such as basins and plains, indoor locations, shaded sheds, basements, and caves that can provide shade and cooling are required.
2. Building the beds. For indoor cultivation on flat ground, bricks or wooden boards can be used to form bed pools 80 cm wide and 20 cm high, with unlimited length. We are currently filming and editing a complete set of the latest technical videos on indoor box-type Gastrodia cultivation, so please stay tuned.
For sloping beds built in fields or mountainous areas, dig 10 cm deep and 80 cm wide, with unlimited length, as long as it is convenient for operation. The spacing between beds is 50 cm, which makes it easy to dig drainage ditches and walk.
3. Sowing and cultivation. Spread pine needles and leaves 5 cm thick on the bottom of the bed, place thick rods one against another with a spacing of about 2 cm, either horizontally or vertically, with the cut notches facing up, then fill with sandy soil until level with the bark surface of the thick rods, but do not cover the bark surface. Spray water until the sandy soil is thoroughly wet, scatter a thin layer of leaves to cover the thick rods, sow branch spawn, with each spawn piece spaced 6 cm apart, and dibble Gastrodia seeds, with each seed spaced 10 cm apart. Place a thick rod about 5 cm in diameter every 40-50 cm, scatter pine needles until level with the rod surface, do not press firmly, keep it loose, spread fine branches about 3-5 cm thick on top of the rods, and cover with soil about 15 cm thick. There is no need to worry about the branches that spread open, as they can play a ventilating role.
Gastrodia Cultivation Techniques
1. Selecting the seedling site
Choose loam or sandy loam that is moist, breathable, well-draining, loose, and rich in humus. Dig pits 35 cm deep and 85 cm long and wide for cultivation. When selecting land, virgin land is especially good. A soil pH of 5-6 is suitable. Avoid clay soil and waterlogged low-lying land, and avoid continuous cropping. In addition, places such as air-raid shelters, caves, and basements can also be used to grow Gastrodia.
2. Cultivating fungus beds
Before planting Gastrodia, you must first cultivate Armillaria fungus wood or fungus beds. Generally, broadleaf trees can all be used as materials for cultivating Armillaria, but trees such as Quercus, oak, chestnut, and cork oak are better.
3. Seed treatment
Seed selection: Select Gastrodia dug up in the current year, remove the commercial tubers, select all seed tubers and then screen them again, pick out rotten tubers, deformed tubers, and other inferior seed tubers, and finally determine those with comparable size, robustness, neat appearance, large size, good color, and no wounds as the seed tubers to be used the following year.
4. Seed propagation
Select Gastrodia weighing more than 100 g, and plant them as soon as they are harvested. During heading, prevent exposure to sunlight, and perform artificial pollination during flowering. Pollination can be done around 10 o'clock on a sunny day, when the edge of the anther cap slightly reveals the flower. After pollination, cover the fruit spike with a plastic bag.
Post-planting Management
After Gastrodia is planted, no fertilization is needed, and no loosening of soil or weeding is needed; maintain a wild state. The soil moisture content should often be kept at about 40%, and the ground temperature at 15-28 degrees. During the rhizome expansion period, spray the medicinal material Gendaling solution on the leaf surface, which can promote the transport of leaf photosynthetic products (nutrients) to the root system, improve the nutrient conversion rate and soil-loosening capacity, make the rhizome expand rapidly, and greatly increase the content of active substances. In the high-temperature summer season, use shade nets or tree branches to shade and cool, and prevent trampling by people and livestock. If drought occurs, water moderately. At the same time, pay attention to preventing water accumulation during the rainy season. Before overwintering, thicken the covering soil and add leaves to prevent freezing; during the high-temperature period from June to August, build sheds or intercrop tall-stalk crops for shade. Before the rainy season arrives, clear the drainage ditches and promptly drain accumulated water to prevent tuber rot. In spring and autumn, necessary sunlight should be received to maintain a certain temperature.
Efficacy and Effects of Gastrodia
1. Analgesic effect: The Gastrodia injection made from Gastrodia has a clear analgesic effect on trigeminal neuralgia, vascular neurogenic headache, cerebrovascular disease headache, toxic polyneuritis, and so on. In recent years, after clinical trials by some medical units on more than 1000 patients, the effective rate reached 90%.
2. Sedative effect: Some medical units used synthetic gastrodin (gastrodia glycoside) to treat patients with neurasthenia and neurasthenic syndrome, with effective rates of 89.44% and 86.87% respectively. It can also inhibit the central excitatory effect caused by caffeine, and it also strengthens the sleep-prolonging effect of pentobarbital sodium.
3. Anticonvulsant effect: Gastrodia has a certain therapeutic effect on facial nerve twitching, limb numbness, hemiplegia, epilepsy, and so on. It also relieves smooth muscle spasms and relieves angina pectoris and biliary colic.
4. Blood pressure-lowering effect: Gastrodia can treat hypertension. Long-term use can calm the liver and boost qi, benefit the waist and knees, strengthen tendons and bones, and can also increase peripheral and coronary artery blood flow, with a protective effect on the heart.
5. Effects of improving eyesight and enhancing intelligence: Gastrodia also has the effect of improving eyesight and significantly enhancing memory. Gastrodia has a clear protective and regulatory effect on the human brain nervous system, can enhance the resolving power of the optic nerve, and has now been used as a brain health food or brain health medicine for high-altitude flight personnel. Japan uses Gastrodia injection to treat Alzheimer's disease, with an effective rate of 81%.
The above are some Gastrodia planting techniques summarized for everyone. I hope they can help you! Gastrodia is a herbaceous plant, mainly using its tubers as medicine. It is a very famous precious Chinese medicinal material in our country, and it has always been very popular in the Chinese medicine market. The prospects for planting Gastrodia are very broad!