Detailed Guide to Purple Yam Cultivation: Earn 20,000 yuan per mu
Purple yam, also known as purple ginseng and purple huai yam, contains multiple vitamins, proteins, amino acids and trace elements, and has high dietary therapy value, so it is grown in many regions. So how do you grow purple yam? What are its cultivation prospects?
1. Introduction to purple yam:
1. Where does purple yam come from?
Purple yam originated in Pingyao and Jiexiu, Shanxi, and is now distributed in North China, Northwest China and the Yangtze River basin regions such as Jiangxi and Hunan. Among them, Lushan County, Ya'an, Sichuan is the main production area.
2. What else is purple yam called?
Purple yam is also known as purple ginseng and purple long taro. In traditional Chinese medicine it is called huai shan, huai shan yao, huai yam, etc.
2. How do you grow purple yam?
1. Fine land preparation
Choose a field with convenient drainage and irrigation, fertile soil and a deep soil layer, preferably sandy loam or loam with good permeability. Plow deeply and sun-bleach the soil, then prepare the land and make beds. The bed surface should be 50cm wide, the bed height 30cm and the ditch width 30cm. The bed surface should be leveled and finely prepared.
2. Seed tuber treatment
Before sowing, select disease-free and undamaged seed tubers, remove the soil on the surface, cut them into tuber pieces about 5cm long and 40-50g in weight, mix with lime or burnt soil ash, and sow after the cut surfaces have dried. When cutting, disinfect the knife with 75% alcohol to prevent virus (bacterial) infection.
3. Sowing at the right time
Sow around Qingming, using single-plant single-row planting. Plant spacing is 30cm, row spacing is 80cm, and 2,700-2,800 plants are sown per mu. In the middle of the prepared bed surface, open a 20cm-deep sowing furrow, first apply compound fertilizer in the furrow, cover with 2cm of crushed soil, then place the seed pieces, and cover with fine soil, keeping the seed spacing and soil covering uniform and consistent. The seed rate is about 130kg per mu.
4. Black film mulching
After sowing, cover the bed surface with black plastic film 100cm wide. When covering, stretch the film tight and press the edges firmly, and press it down with clods of soil every 2m on the film to prevent strong winds from destroying the film. When seedlings emerge, break the film in time to expose the seedlings, to prevent the leaves from being scorched by contact with the plastic film. Using black film mulching provides better warming and moisture retention than white plastic film, and has better weed prevention and weed control effects.
5. Trellising and vine guiding
After seedlings emerge, build trellises in time to guide the vines to grow upward. Generally, thin bamboo poles are inserted to build a herringbone trellis, with a trellis height of 1.6-2.0m. The supports should be inserted firmly and tied tightly to prevent being blown down by wind. Yam stems and vines can generally extend and climb onto the trellis naturally. To avoid tangling with each other, you can also guide the stems and vines to coil evenly on the trellis.
6. Scientific fertilization
(1) Apply sufficient base fertilizer: apply base fertilizer in combination with plowing and sowing. Before plowing, evenly spread decomposed rapeseed cake on the ground surface per mu, then plow deeply 30cm so that soil and fertilizer are fully mixed; when sowing, bury 45% potassium sulfate compound fertilizer in the sowing furrow at a rate of 100kg per mu (see Sowing at the right time for the method).
(2) Timely topdressing: at the stage when stems and vines fully cover the trellis, apply 25-35kg of high-concentration compound fertilizer and 10kg of urea per mu. In the late growth period, spray 0.3% potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution and urea two or three times to protect leaves and prevent aging.
7. Irrigation and drainage
From April to June, during continuous rainy and heavy rain weather, promptly drain standing water from the production field to prevent waterlogging damage. From July to August, if there is continuous drought weather of more than 7d, promptly use sprinkler irrigation or run horse water irrigation to keep the soil moist.
8. Disease and pest control
Yam is mainly harmed by yam anthracnose, brown spot disease, bacterial wilt, viral disease, and pests such as white grubs and cutworms. Focus on controlling anthracnose. In the early stage of the disease, spray 75g of 25% prochloraz emulsifiable concentrate mixed with 50kg of water per mu; if the disease is severe, spray once more after 7-10d. To control viral disease, mainly select seed tubers that do not carry the virus. At sowing or seedling stage, use 5% carbaryl granules to dress seeds or mix with fine sand and broadcast to control underground pests.
9. Harvest at the right time
At the end of October, the plants stop growing and the underground tubers are fully mature. Choose clear, good weather to begin harvesting, and all harvesting should be completed before frost. When harvesting, take care to damage the tuber skin as little as possible and do not break the tubers.
3. What is the market price of purple yam per jin?
The market wholesale price of purple yam is roughly 5-8 yuan, and the retail price in supermarkets is roughly between 12-18 yuan.
4. About how much money can be earned from growing one mu of purple yam?
About 2,000-2,500 purple yam plants are grown per mu. If we average 2 jin harvested per plant, then 4,000 jin can be harvested. If grown well, it will certainly be higher than this number. Sold at the current wholesale price, it can sell for more than 20,000 yuan; if sold at retail, it will certainly exceed 30,000 yuan. The cost of growing purple yam is relatively high, with the total cost per mu at 3,000-4,000 yuan, and the cost will be lower for large-scale planting. From this it can be calculated that, at least before it is popularized on a large scale, earning 20,000 yuan per mu is possible, provided of course that you can sell it all.