A Detailed Guide to Snake Gourd Cultivation Techniques and Management Key Points
When it comes to snake gourd, I think many people do not know what it is. Just hearing the name makes it sound rather strange, and I think many people have probably never eaten snake gourd either. Below, let us take a look together with the editor at just what kind of gourd snake gourd really is.
What is snake gourd
Snake gourd is an annual climbing vine; the stem is slender, much branched, with longitudinal ridges and grooves, covered with short soft hairs and sparsely with long soft-hairy long stiff hairs. The root system of snake gourd is well developed, with many lateral roots and prone to forming adventitious roots. The stem vine is slender and long, reaching 5-8 m in length, with a five-ridged, green stem and strong branching ability. The leaves are green, palmately deeply lobed, with relatively rounded sinuses, and the leaf surface has fine down. The corolla is white, and the flowers are unisexual, with male and female flowers likewise differentiated. Male flowers are mostly in racemes, greenish when in bud, and pale yellow-green when about to open. Male flowers appear earlier than female flowers. Generally, female flowers begin to set at the 20th-25th node of the main vine, after which both the main vine and lateral vines can continuously set female flowers. The young gourd is slender, with the body cylindrical or curved, tapering gradually at the tip and base, shaped like a snake. The rind is grayish white with multiple green stripes, and the flesh is white, loose and soft. The mature gourd is pale reddish brown with loose flesh. The seeds are nearly rectangular, with two parallel small grooves, a rough surface, and a pale brown color, with a 1000-seed weight of 200-250 g.
Cultivation techniques for snake gourd
Every 100 g of young snake gourd fruit contains 94-95 g water, 0.5-0.9 g protein, 0.1 g fat, 0.8 g crude fiber, 3-4 g carbohydrates, and also contains mineral salts and various other nutrients. Snake gourd clears summer heat and relieves fever, promotes urination and lowers blood pressure, and is very beneficial to human health. The young gourd is rich in carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, and its flesh is loose and soft, with a slight unpleasant odor, but after cooking it becomes fragrant and slightly sweet. Snake gourd is eaten as a vegetable when the fruit is young, but the young leaves and young stems can also be eaten. Every kilogram of young snake gourd fruit contains 5-9 g protein, 30-40 g carbohydrates, and other nutrients.
1. Seed soaking and germination promotion, raising strong seedlings
The seed coat of snake gourd is thick and hard, so the seeds must be soaked to promote germination. The usual sowing period is early February. Before sowing, place the seeds in warm water for 15 min, then transfer them into hot water at 50-60°C for 15 min for heat treatment, stirring constantly. After removing them, place them in warm water and soak for 4-8 h. Then take out the seeds, spread them on a wet cloth, cover again with 2-3 layers of wet gauze, and place them in a constant-temperature incubator at 30-35°C to promote germination. During germination promotion, pay attention to turning them and wash them once a day. In 2-3 d the seeds will sprout white.
Once the seeds sprout white, they can be sown. Use a hotbed for seedling raising. Choose a wind-sheltered, sunny place, arrange the nutrient pots on the seedbed, and prepare the nutrient soil by mixing 70% clean garden soil with 30% decomposed barnyard manure. Sow one seed per pot, cover with 1-1.5 cm of soil, then cover with plastic film, set up a small arch shed on top, and cover with plastic film. After the seedlings emerge, remove the plastic film.
During seedling management, temperature, humidity and nutrients must be well controlled. The suitable temperature during the snake gourd seedling stage is 13-28°C, with 23-28°C during the day and 13-18°C at night. Raising the temperature can shorten the seedling age. Growing at a suitable temperature during the day and appropriately lowering the night temperature is beneficial for the accumulation of nutrients in the seedling body and promotes the formation of female flowers. Ten days before planting, seedlings should be hardened off. Master the principle of light but frequent application; generally every 5-6 d apply a little thin fertilizer with water, not too much, to avoid excessive vegetative growth.
2. Land preparation and fertilization, timely planting. As the saying goes: plant gourds as sprouts, plant eggplants as flowers. Gourds should be transplanted as small seedlings to avoid root damage. When the seedlings grow to 2-3 true leaves, they can be planted. For early spring cultivation, protected cultivation in a large shed should be used, which allows an earlier market supply. Combine plowing and bed preparation, applying 45 t of organic fertilizer and 900 kg of compound fertilizer per hm2, using broadcast application or furrow application. A standard large shed generally has 3 beds, with one row planted per bed, and a plant spacing of 80-100 cm. For plastic film mulching cultivation, cut a cross shape in the plastic film according to the specifications, move the seedlings with soil into the holes, then seal the surroundings with soil, and water after planting.
Fertilizer and water management: after planting and recovery from transplanting, apply 75 kg/hm2 of urea with water. When the seedlings are about 30 cm tall, apply 120 kg/hm2 of urea with water again. When the plants are about 100 cm tall, apply 120 kg/hm2 of compound fertilizer. During the fruiting period, vegetative growth and reproductive growth proceed simultaneously, and fertilizer and water requirements increase. Therefore, irrigate in time to keep the soil moist, and apply quick-acting chemical fertilizer once every 10 d to prolong the fruiting period. Also cultivate soil in time. Trellising and vine guiding: snake gourd grows vigorously and the gourds are relatively long, so a horizontal trellis is generally required, with a height of about 2 m. Before the vine reaches the trellis, keep only the main vine and remove all lateral branches. After it reaches the trellis, allow the lateral vines to extend and guide the vines so that they are evenly distributed. After harvesting 1-2 times, prune vines without gourds to avoid consuming nutrients.
Seed saving. For snake gourd seed saving, it is best to keep the gourd at the second node of the main vine. Generally, seeds mature more than 30 days after female flowers open and are pollinated. When the lower end of the seed gourd begins to turn orange-red, it can be picked. After ripening for 1-2 days, take out the seeds, wash them, and dry them for later use. Timely harvesting: from flowering to growing into a marketable gourd, the growth time varies greatly with temperature. In early spring, when temperatures are low, the first batch of gourds takes 20-25 d to harvest. By June-July, when temperatures reach above 30°C, they can be harvested in only 10-12 d. Early gourds are harvested when they reach 1 m long, and mid-season gourds when they reach 1.5 m. If too tender, the yield is low; if too old, the market quality is poor. Generally, a single gourd weight of about 0.4-0.5 kg is suitable. Pest and disease control: snake gourd has strong disease resistance, with occasional viral disease, anthracnose and phytophthora blight, but the incidence is relatively mild. If viral disease is found, remove the plants in time and spray virus A for protection, while also controlling aphids to prevent transmission. Snake gourd has a special odor, so pests are also few. If cabbage white butterflies and tobacco cutworms cause damage, they can be sprayed and killed in the young larval stage with Tianli, Tianba and the like.
Cultivation techniques for snake gourd
1. Fertilizer and water management: snake gourd grows quickly and requires a relatively large amount of fertilizer and water throughout the entire growth period. Apply fertilizer once after planting and survival, and thereafter apply fertilizer once every 1-2 harvests. For topdressing, it is best to use dilute manure water, decomposed cake fertilizer or N, P, K ternary compound fertilizer, combined with foliar spraying of 0.4-0.5% monopotassium phosphate. If fertilizer deficiency occurs during growth, deformed gourds will appear and fail to develop properly, affecting yield and sales.
2. Trellising and pruning: snake gourd has well-developed vines, grows luxuriantly, has strong branching ability, and the gourds are relatively long, so a trellis or shed frame is needed. When the vine grows beyond 30 cm, it should be tied and guided onto the trellis in time. Snake gourd has a strong ability to set fruit continuously. Both its main vine and lateral vines bear gourds, but generally gourds on the main vine are larger and have fewer deformed fruits, while gourds on lateral vines are smaller and have more deformed fruits. Therefore, lateral vines can be properly pruned according to the cultivation method and how early the product is to be marketed. The earlier the market supply and the more refined the cultivation mode, the more thoroughly the lateral vines are pruned. Generally, 2-3 lateral vines can be retained per plant. In a solar greenhouse, all lateral vines can be pruned away, leaving only the main vine to bear gourds.
3. Pest and disease control: snake gourd has relatively few pest and disease problems, and the main pest control target is aphids. Downy mildew can be controlled with metalaxyl and chlorothalonil; powdery mildew can be controlled with chlorothalonil, triadimefon and mancozeb; fusarium wilt can be controlled with pesticides such as high-efficiency carbendazim, thiophanate-methyl and mancozeb.
From the above introduction, everyone can see that snake gourd is an edible vegetable, and snake gourd has very high nutritional value. The shape of snake gourd is very strange, crooked and curved, somewhat similar in appearance to a snake, and the growth of snake gourd is also somewhat similar to that of loofah.