Tsaoko: Easy to Grow and High-Yielding, a Detailed Guide to the Cultivation Techniques of This Dual-Use Medicinal and Culinary Herb

Tsaoko is a dual-use medicinal and culinary Chinese medicinal herb; its taste is pungent and its nature is warm. It has the effects of drying dampness and strengthening the spleen, and of resolving phlegm and treating malaria, and it is also an important cooking spice. Domestically, besides relying on harvesting wild resources, it is currently still imported from abroad. Tsaoko is mainly distributed in Vietnam and in parts of Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in China (Wenshan, Tengchong, Lijiang, Nujiang). The cultivation techniques for tsaoko are introduced as follows:

1. How to choose and prepare the land?

Choose fertile valleys or streamside sites, cut away excessive trees, keep the shade level at 50%, clear weeds, and turn and break up the soil.

2. What are the propagation methods for tsaoko?

Use seed propagation and division propagation. For seed propagation, select robust, high-yielding mother plants, and harvest when the fruit skin turns purplish red and the fruit is fully ripe. Peel the skin off the harvested fruit, soak the seeds for about 10 hours, rub them with coarse sand to remove the gelatinous layer on the surface, and then sow. You can also take 1-year-old bud-bearing rhizomes from the mother plant for division propagation.

3. The importance of shading and weeding

After tsaoko seedlings emerge, remove the covering grass immediately; if the canopy density is insufficient, set up a simple shade frame for shading. After planting, carry out one round each of intertillage and weeding between April and June each year. During the last weeding, cut away the old plants that died after fruiting and diseased plants.

4. What to note when applying topdressing at the right time?

In production areas where conditions permit, apply topdressing several times each year. In early spring, mix dry, fine chicken manure with plant ash and scatter it around the plants. In summer, just as flowering begins, scatter plant ash on the leaf surfaces before the morning dew has dried as a foliar topdressing. In early winter, after harvesting the fruit, heap barnyard manure and burnt soil around the roots. You can also apply topdressing in ring-shaped trenches combined with intertillage and weeding.

5. How to earth up to strengthen buds?

After tsaoko is planted and before flowering, earth up the soil so that the young buds grow robustly. After flowering, do not earth up, so as to avoid smothering and damaging the flower buds, which causes rot and no fruiting. During each weeding, if fibrous roots are found exposed on the surface, add a small amount of humus soil at the fibrous roots to help the roots absorb nutrients.

6. Key points of drainage and irrigation

When spherical flower buds appear at the roots and drought occurs, irrigate promptly; when there is too much rain, pay attention to drainage to avoid damaging the flower buds. At the same time, remove debris around the flower buds to give them ventilation and light, so as to prevent flower drop and fruit rot.

7. Adjusting canopy density

Throughout its growth and development stages, tsaoko needs a certain amount of shade. When tree growth makes the light transmittance in the forest insufficient, thin the trees appropriately or prune branches so that the canopy density is kept at 50%-60%, to facilitate the growth of new plants.

8. How to care for the plants after planting?

For field management, after planting carry out intertillage and weeding 2-3 times each year in the dry and autumn seasons. During autumn weeding, cut away dead plants, diseased plants and old plants that have already fruited. Combine intertillage and weeding with topdressing, applying green manure, compost and phosphate fertilizer, etc., in ring-shaped trenches. Earth up before flowering to promote robust growth of the young buds.

9. Harvesting and drying

Tsaoko fruit begins to ripen in October to November; harvest when it turns reddish brown but has not yet split, and sun-dry it or dry it over a low fire.