How to Grow A-choy (Taiwan lettuce) for High Yield? Latest Cultivation Techniques Explained
Vegetables generally have a very high water content, so water is an important factor for high vegetable yields, and the other is fertilizer. So besides these factors, are there any others? Let's take a look below at how to grow A-choy for high yield!
1. Deep plowing
A-choy does not root deeply, but after years of cultivation, the surface soil has somewhat lower nutrient content than the deeper layers, since the deeper soil, apart from being undisturbed, also has years of accumulated nutrients. Deep plowing is meant to give A-choy a better soil environment, because it grows extremely fast and can mature in just about 2 months, so a higher-quality nutrient-rich soil is necessary to ensure its development. Therefore, the first step to high yield is deep plowing, to a depth of about 15 cm deeper than what people normally dig.
2. Extensive composting
Because A-choy grows fast, it needs abundant fertilizer to meet its growth needs, so initial composting is especially important. The composting here means mixing fertilizer with the soil to make compost. Nowadays, many rural areas have special soil-loosening equipment: spread fermented manure evenly over the soil surface, mix it with the soil-loosening machine, and after 2 rounds of mixing, apply some chemical fertilizer, mix a third time, then wait three days before planting, to give the soil time to digest the fertility, and then plant.
3. Control density
A single A-choy plant needs a relatively large amount of nutrients, so blindly pursuing high density is not the way to high yield; in the end it only leads to poor growth all around. A reasonable planting density is a big help for high yield. Set the density according to the local water and nutrient environment: for soil with good fertility, keep plant spacing at about 10-15 cm; for poor fertility, keep the spacing at about 15-20 cm. Keep each ridge about 1.2 m wide, with a drainage ditch of about 20 cm reserved in the middle.
4. Maintain moisture
Experienced growers know that A-choy grown in paddy fields yields much more than in dry land. And as stated at the beginning of the article, vegetables have a very high water content, so their water requirements are also very high. The drainage ditch mentioned earlier can also be used for irrigation. In an A-choy field, the moisture should keep the soil in a moist state long-term, with a small amount of water present in the drainage ditch. This builds a moist growing environment for A-choy, and its leaves will also grow much faster, achieving the effect of high yield.
High vegetable yields are really about creating a growing environment that suits them better, so they can make the most of nutrients and grow to the ideal result. If you have ways to improve things based on their growth habits, you can experiment with them too.