Is Hornwort Harmful, and How to Anchor and Plant It in an Aquarium, and When

Hornwort, also known as fine grass, fish grass, soft grass and pineweed, is a perennial herbaceous submerged aquatic plant that was once common in ponds, ditches and similar places, flowering from June to July and fruiting from August to October.So is hornwort a harmful plant? How do you anchor it in an aquarium? When do you plant it? How do you grow it? According to data from the hornwort family, hornwort contains plastocyanin and ferredoxin, the former a copper-containing protein and the latter an iron-containing protein. Its nature and flavor are sweet, bland and cool. It has relatively high medicinal value. The whole plant is used as medicine; it can be collected in all four seasons, dried in the sun, and is used to cool the blood and stop bleeding and to clear heat and promote diuresis; it mainly treats blood-heat vomiting of blood, coughing of blood, and painful strangury with heat. Hornwort can also be used as feed for pigs, fish and poultry, and for aquascaping in artificial fish tanks.

How do you anchor hornwort in an aquarium?

1. Aquarium aquascaping developed on the basis of tropical fish keeping and aquatic plant cultivation.

2. In the early days of keeping tropical fish, people simply kept some ornamental fish in fish tanks; as ornamental requirements rose, people put some aquatic plants into the tanks as decoration, and as lighting equipment and thermostatic equipment became increasingly mature, aquatic plants moved from a supporting role to a leading role, so that growing aquatic plants developed into a specialized technique.

3. The increase in aquatic plant varieties also laid the foundation for arranging aquatic plants in aquariums; through different varieties, different colors and different shapes of aquatic plants, carefully designed and laid out, plus stone materials and driftwood and so on, people create a natural little world of their own.

When do you plant hornwort? How do you grow it?

1. Nursery site selection

Although hornwort can grow on land lacking nutrients, the yield will not be very high. The quality of the soil directly determines how much hornwort is produced; if the soil is very good and the growing environment is very good, then management by workers will be much simpler and the yield will increase accordingly. Hornwort is not strict about soil, but sandy soil, yellow earth, clay and soil with a lot of sand are all fine. Hornwort is cold-tolerant, drought-tolerant and not afraid of water; the land chosen for planting should be flat, and the land must drain smoothly. When summer comes and rain gradually increases, accumulated water must be able to drain away immediately, otherwise there may be large-scale death of seedlings. The key point of the terrain is that it helps drain accumulated water; the soil merely needs to be about right, with sufficient sunlight.

2. Land preparation

Plowing: Hornwort is very sensitive to nutrients; only with sufficient soil nutrients can it develop glossy green and vigorous growth and sturdy plants. But some fields have soil on terrain with only about average nutrients, so if you want high hornwort yields, you need to apply enough farmyard manure before planting, broadcasting 5,000-7,000 kg of cow dung and pig manure per mu. After applying the fertilizer, plow deeply once and harrow level once, so that the soil and fertilizer are fully and evenly mixed together, with no large clods, making planting easier and increasing seedling emergence.

Making beds: To facilitate necessary maintenance measures such as irrigation, weeding and fertilizer broadcasting throughout hornwort's growing period, Changjing Landscape suggests making the land into fixed-standard beds 1.6 m wide and 12-22 m long, depending on the actual plot.

3. Sowing

Hornwort seeds are ordinary in size and have fairly good ability to push through the soil. Before planting, some pregermination methods can be done as appropriate; to be honest, part of the process is very simple: soak in warm water for 1 day, then take them out and dry them, and they are ready to plant. The planting depth should be moderate or shallow, with soil covering no more than 5 cm deep. Basically, row-by-row sowing is mostly used; choose a breezy environment, mix the hornwort seeds into wet sand, and spread them evenly over the soil. After sowing, you can cover the soil by raking by hand or by machine, and after covering the soil, irrigate once; in about 5-9 days seedling emergence will increase.

4. Seedling-stage management

There are relatively few matters in hornwort seedling-stage management; it has few pests and diseases and grows well. The greatest part of the work is only irrigation, weeding and preventing pests and diseases. During hornwort's peak growth period, it needs a large amount of water and fertilizer; during this period, 40 kg of compound fertilizer can be broadcast per mu. During hornwort's peak growth time, sufficient water is also needed; at this time, the number and timing of waterings should be decided according to rainfall conditions.

In addition, under normal circumstances, from planting hornwort to the first harvest is generally 50 days. During harvesting, note that you should lift the stick and shake it, turn it 4-5 turns in the water, then hold the stick horizontally and lift it upward with both hands. The second harvest should be 30 days later, and for the third harvest it is enough to leave only a few days between them.