Can Chinese herbal medicine Di Pipa be cultivated artificially? Detailed explanation of cultivation techniques

Di Pipa, also known as Di Guo or wild sweet potato, is a relatively scarce Chinese herbal medicine on the market. Di Pipa is widely distributed in the Yangtze River basin and subtropical provinces and regions, such as Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and southern Shaanxi. So can Di Pipa be cultivated artificially? What are the key points of Di Pipa cultivation techniques?

1. Can Di Pipa be cultivated artificially?

Wild Di Pipa prefers a warm and humid climate and grows naturally on hillsides in low mountain areas, beside field ridges, beside ditches and beside thickets, often growing in patches.

At present, Di Pipa can already be cultivated artificially, but artificial cultivation of Di Pipa is not very common, and most of it is still wild. If it can be transplanted for imitate-wild cultivation, the results should not be bad either.

In the past, the price of Di Pipa was not considered very high, but in the past two years it can sell for about 20 yuan per jin. If cultivation succeeds, the benefits are still acceptable.

The cost of cultivating Di Pipa is relatively low, and it has strong adaptability to the environment. At the same time, it does not need very fertile land, and cultivation is also relatively simple. The cost required for one mu of Di Pipa is about more than two thousand yuan.

However, the yield of Di Pipa is not very high, with at most six hundred jin per mu. Still, calculated at a market price of twenty yuan per jin, the benefits are acceptable, with a profit of about twelve thousand.

2. What are the key points of Di Pipa cultivation techniques?

1. Di Pipa is extensively managed and easy to propagate. In actual production, using cutting propagation can achieve the purpose of rapid breeding. Its cultivation technique is simple. As long as the climate, soil and moisture are suitable, planting during the rainy season gives a survival rate as high as more than 90%. Taking the Guilin area as an example, generally after the temperature rises from early March to early April is the best period for cutting propagation. Cut one-year-old branches, 10-15cm long. The cutting substrate is not restricted; fine sand or loam are both acceptable.

If rapid growth is not needed, it can also be directly cut in the location that needs greening, with a plant spacing of 15cm×15cm. If cut in March, it can close the rows by the end of May. At the same time, cutting experiments show that a stem segment with one node may develop into a population, because its characteristic of rooting where the node touches the ground makes it very easy to grow new plants.

2. According to many years of cultivation experience, after Di Pipa is planted in the ground, attention should be paid during the seedling stage to watering and pulling out weeds. After the rows close, watering once a week is enough. During the vegetative growth season, the demand for N and P is relatively large. According to its growth and site conditions, spread some urea and compound fertilizer with relatively high N and P on rainy days to promote seedling growth.

3. Di Pipa has strong stress resistance and is suitable for extensive management. After planting, it does not need frequent replacement or frequent artificial pruning. In communities planted in patches, there are rarely other weeds. Pests and diseases occasionally include leaf-eating pests, such as bamboo locusts, skulls and hawkmoths, which need to be controlled early.