How to Manage Bitter Melon at the Seedling Stage? Latest Technical Method Tutorial

Bitter melon cultivation starts with raising seedlings. The main purpose of raising seedlings is to cultivate high-quality, robust seedlings, which further ensures the future growth of bitter melon and is also the prerequisite for high yield. No matter how you cultivate a weak, diseased seedling, it can never catch up with a good seedling from the start. Therefore, careful management is required when raising seedlings at the seedling stage, to ensure that all seedlings are robust. There are also some special management requirements for bitter melon. So now let us learn about them together.

I. Heat preservation

Emergence requires maintaining sufficient temperature, about 20 to 25 degrees during the day and about 15 to 18 degrees at night. If the temperature is too high, seedlings tend to grow leggy, producing tall-footed seedlings with very long stems, but the leaves do not keep up with stem growth, and such seedlings are prone to lodging. When about two weeks have passed since emergence, the temperature can be lowered to 20 to 23 degrees during the day and above 10 degrees but below 15 degrees at night.

II. Fertilizer and water

Seedlings need sufficient water, but humidity must be controlled. If humidity is too high while the seedlings are still small, various seedling-stage diseases are likely to occur. Therefore, the seedling shed needs to be ventilated promptly after watering, and the environmental humidity must not be allowed to become too high. Water about once every 5 days, not too many times. Seedlings need diluted fertilizer water; the concentration of fertilizer dissolved in water is relatively low, and the fertilizer effect is not strong, so it will not damage the roots or cause excessive nutrition and leggy growth. In addition to the base fertilizer, you can apply one round of diluted fertilizer water or spray foliar fertilizer.

III. Hardening off seedlings

One week before transplanting to the field, the seedlings must be hardened off to train their adaptability and their ability to resist heat and drought, so they adapt to the outside climate earlier. During the day, ventilation should gradually begin, and in the end the cover can be completely removed, but at night heat preservation is necessary, and light should be shaded. For hardening off, use only the greenhouse, then add soil and maintain soil moisture.

IV. Weeding and loosening the soil

After the seedlings emerge, because there was more watering earlier, the soil is relatively compact, so use a small stick to gently loosen the soil across the entire seedbed. Do not loosen the soil too deeply; loosen it at intervals, and loosening the soil 2 to 3 cm is enough. However, when raising seedlings in seedling trays, you cannot loosen the soil, as it will absolutely damage the roots. If weeds are found, pull them out promptly, and they must be pulled out at the seedling stage.

V. Disease control

The main disease is damping-off, which harms many vegetables and can harm them from the seedling stage all the way to the adult plant stage. It mainly occurs at the seedling stage. After infection by the pathogen, the base of the seedling stem turns brown and rots, and the seedling directly lodges. It can be considered a devastating disease. Use a 25% Ridomil wettable powder 800-fold solution or a 60% Sandofan wettable powder 500-fold solution. Rhizoctonia rot occurs relatively sporadically, but the incidence is severe. After infection, the seedlings first show lesions, which then gradually expand, and finally the seedlings wither and die. Use a 5% Jinggangmycin aqueous solution 1000-fold liquid once every 3 days, for 2 consecutive times.

Bitter melon at the seedling stage needs heat preservation and maintaining a suitable temperature. You should promote seedling growth, but leggy growth must be prevented. In addition to base fertilizer, apply less topdressing at the seedling stage to prevent leggy growth. Loosening the soil and weeding can help growth. Before transplanting, the seedlings must be hardened off to avoid seedling death after transplanting, with key prevention focused on damping-off.