Summary of High-Yield Sesame Cultivation Techniques in Summer 2018
Sesame is one of the most important oil crops in China, and it is grown over an extremely wide area in our country. It is now the summer of 2018, a sensitive period for sesame planting and management, so what are the high-yield sesame cultivation techniques for summer?
1. Select good seed. At present, the main white sesame varieties grown are Dongzhi No. 8 and Dongzhi No. 10, with a yield of about 80 kg per 667 sq m, and up to 100 kg for the highest yields. Local black sesame varieties can also be chosen for cultivation.
2. Prepare the soil finely and apply sufficient base fertilizer. Sesame is a warmth-loving crop, and it is best cultivated on loose-textured, well-drained sandy loam plots, preferably in rotation with soybean, corn, peanut, and so on. Before sowing, prepare the soil finely, and at the same time apply 20 loads of farmyard manure per 667 sq m; for acidic soil plots, additionally apply 50-100 kg of lime. It is best to sow on a sunny day; mix the seed thoroughly into fine mud or burnt mud ash and sow after mixing well, using about 300 g of seed per 667 sq m. Drilling is generally used; after sowing, press the soil firm with the foot and do not cover with soil again.
3. Strengthen field management. Thin the seedlings when the young plants have 1 pair of true leaves, and finalize the stand when the young plants have 3-4 pairs of true leaves, taking care to remove the small and keep the large, and remove the weak and keep the strong. Branching-type sesame varieties generally keep about 10,000 plants per 667 sq m, while single-stem-type varieties keep about 15,000 plants per 667 sq m.
After the stand is finalized, cultivate and weed 2-3 times in time, and at the same time clean the furrows and earth up the soil. At the sesame budding stage, generally apply 10 kg of urea per 667 sq m washed in with water; at the full flowering stage, spray the leaves with a 0.3% potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution.
4. Pest and disease control. The main diseases harming sesame are damping-off, anthracnose, and powdery mildew, which can be controlled by spraying diluted solutions of carbendazim, thiophanate-methyl, mancozeb, and other agents; the main insect pests are cutworms, aphids, noctuid moths, and so on, which can be controlled by spraying diluted solutions of chlorpyrifos, imidacloprid, and other agents.
5. Harvest. Begin harvesting when the sesame capsules turn from green to yellow. At harvest, cut the plants off about 5 cm above the ground, then tie them into bundles, set up every 3 bundles as a tripod, and stand them upright in the sun. Thresh when most of the capsules have split open, then dry again after threshing; generally 3 threshings are needed.