A Detailed Guide to Job's Tears Planting Methods and Planting Time
Job's tears is generally grown using the water-cultivation or dry-cultivation method, with mid-June being the best time. When sowing job's tears, choose a fertile vegetable garden plot as the seedbed; after the seedlings emerge, plant them using the water-cultivation method at 2-3 seedlings per clump or the dry-cultivation method at 2-3 seedlings per hole.
Job's Tears Planting Techniques:
1. Site Selection and Land Preparation
Job's tears can be grown in any of the soil types suitable for cultivating flue-cured tobacco, and in production, sandy loam fields along rivers with good irrigation conditions are often chosen for growing job's tears. Land preparation methods can be divided into two types depending on the planting method: (1) Land preparation for the water-cultivation method. This is the same as preparing paddy fields: first irrigate to soften the field, then till and level it with machinery or with animal-drawn plows and harrows, and once leveled, it is ready for transplanting; (2) Land preparation for the dry-cultivation method: plow and turn the soil by hand, machine or animal power, then form ridges and beds, with beds generally 70-80 cm wide and furrows 20-30 cm wide.
2. Water and Fertilizer
Follow the principle of alternating management of “wet-dry-water-wet-dry”, that is, use the measures of moist seedling raising, dry conditions during jointing, water present at booting, ample water at heading, moist conditions during grain filling, and dry field at harvest. The method and amount of fertilization depend on the nutrient requirements of job's tears and the fertilization levels and habits of each region, and attention should be paid to a reasonable ratio of base fertilizer to topdressing. Chemical fertilizers can be used for topdressing job's tears, applied at the young ear and heading stages.
3. Pollination
Job's tears is a monoecious plant with separate inflorescences, and within the same inflorescence the male flowers mature first, out of sync with the female flowers, so cross-pollination from other plants is often needed; pollination is generally completed by wind, and during the peak flowering period from 10 to 12 a.m., shaking the plants with tools such as ropes to make the pollen fly has a clear effect on increasing the seed-setting rate.
4. Pest and Disease Control
Common diseases of job's tears include smut (also known as smut fungus disease) and leaf blight, and pests include corn borers and aphids, among others. Growers should take preventive and control measures in the job's tears field in advance, and promptly spray affected plants with pesticides when disease occurs.
Because job's tears seeds do not ripen uniformly, the signal that they can be harvested is when 80% of the grains have changed color and become hard, plump and full. After harvesting, spread the job's tears out in the sun for 3-4 days, and then thresh them.