What are the latest precautions during the flowering and fruiting period of bitter melon?
Bitter melon is a common vegetable in daily life. Its taste is slightly bitter, but it also has quite a few benefits. Regular consumption can effectively remove inflammation from the body and has a good resistance effect against many pathogens. In summer, it can also clear heat and relieve summer heat. Bitter melon is simple to grow, but several issues need attention during the flowering and fruit-setting period. Let's take a look below.
1. Artificial pollination
After entering the flowering and fruit-setting period, artificial pollination should be carried out promptly every day. The method of artificial pollination is relatively simple. First, pick the male flowers, and use the stamens of the male flowers to smear the style of the female flowers, thus completing pollination. Generally, each male flower can pollinate 2-3 female flowers. If the planting area is large, the pollen can be collected, mixed with a filler, and then sprayed for pollination. Although the effect is not as good as manual pollination, it saves time and effort.
2. Vine pruning
Bitter melon is very prone to growing side branches and vines when planted, and these side branches are very prone to growing male flowers. At this time, these useless side branches and vines should be removed promptly to avoid unnecessary consumption of plant nutrients, which would affect female flower blooming and fruit setting. This allows the plant's nutrients to concentrate on female flowers and young fruits, improving the fruit-setting rate and promoting young fruit growth.
3. Reasonable fruit retention
Many branches and vines of bitter melon retain many flowers, but due to insufficient nutrients, many melons grow poorly or develop deformities. Such melons have no commercial value at all and only waste the plant's nutrients in vain. Therefore, these densely set small melons or deformed small melons should be removed promptly. This allows well-growing bitter melons to grow better and reduces losses, but care should be taken during the operation.
4. Strengthen fertilizer and water management
Although some small melons grow poorly, their growth time has already been long. However, due to insufficient nutrients, they grow abnormally. Therefore, once in the flowering and fruit-setting period, fertilizer and water management must be strengthened, with more organic fertilizer applied to provide sufficient nutrients, promote strong seedling growth, and ensure that the fruits have sufficient nutrients for growth and development.
5. Disease control
Bitter melon is very prone to powdery mildew during growth, and its leaves are dense, so chemical control should be carried out in advance to prevent diseases. Also note that the single use of nitrogen fertilizer should be reduced, and attention should be paid to the reasonable combination of fertilizers. Excessive application of nitrogen fertilizer will lead to excessive growth of branches and leaves, competing with fruits for water and fertilizer, which is detrimental to fruit growth and development.
The above introduction to precautions during the flowering and fruiting period of bitter melon is hoped to help you. If you want to learn more related knowledge, please stay tuned to us.