How to cultivate mung bean for high yield? Latest technical method tutorial

Mung bean is an annual erect herbaceous plant of the genus Vigna in the Fabaceae family. It is widely cultivated in East Asian countries, with small amounts also grown in Africa, Europe, and the United States. Due to its short growth period, strong adaptability, and fast seedling growth, it is suitable for intercropping and relay intercropping with various dryland crops in hilly areas, and can also be intercropped or mixed with tall crops such as corn and sorghum. Now let us take a look at high-yield cultivation techniques for mung bean!

Site Selection and Land Preparation

1. Site selection and crop rotation: Mung bean has particularly strong adaptability and can generally grow in sandy soil, thin hillside soil, black soil, and clay soil. It is often intercropped with crops such as corn, sorghum, cotton, sweet potato, sesame, and foxtail millet, and can also be planted on field ridges and in gaps. Continuous cropping should be avoided, as it leads to more pests and diseases, poor quality, and harmful microorganisms that suppress the development of rhizobia. At the same time, mung bean is also an important soil-enriching crop and an excellent preceding crop for cereals. Therefore, when planting mung bean, land should be reasonably arranged and crop rotation should be practiced. It is best to rotate with cereal crops such as corn, sorghum, and wheat. Chinese cabbage should not be used as a preceding crop. Generally, an interval of 2 to 3 years is preferable.

2. Land preparation and moisture conservation: Mung bean is a dicotyledonous crop, and its cotyledons emerge above ground. The seedling has weak ability to break through the soil. If the soil is compacted or there are too many clods, it easily causes missing plants, broken rows, or uneven emergence. Therefore, before sowing, deep plowing and fine harrowing are required, with careful land preparation to level the clods, make the soil loose, store water and conserve moisture, and prevent soil compaction, with a loose top and firm bottom, so as to facilitate emergence and practice crop rotation.

Timely Sowing

1. Selection of improved varieties: Choose varieties with large grains, thin seed coats, low hard seed rate, easy cooking and softening, good taste, and good yield performance. The main varieties include Bailü 522, Bailü No. 6, and Bailü No. 8. From the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center, there are Zhonglü No. 1 and Zhonglü No. 2, and from Jilin, there are Jilü 9346, Gonglü No. 1, and Gonglü No. 2. These varieties generally yield more than 40% higher than local varieties.

2. Suitable sowing time: Mung bean can be sown in spring and summer. Spring sowing is from late April to early and mid-May. Summer sowing is in mid-to-late June, and early sowing should be pursued. Mung bean prefers warmth. The suitable temperature for emergence and growth is 15 to 18°C, and higher temperatures are needed during the growth period. Germination begins at 8 to 12°C. During flowering and pod setting, the most suitable temperature is generally 18 to 20°C. If the temperature is too high, stems and leaves grow excessively, which affects flowering and pod setting. Mung bean is not tolerant of frost in the late growth stage. When the temperature drops below 0°C, the plants will freeze to death, and the seed germination rate will also be low. Therefore, for summer and autumn sowing of mung bean, attention must be paid to timely early sowing so that it can mature normally before low temperatures and early frost arrive. The sowing rate is generally 1.5 to 2.0 kg per mu, and the sowing depth should preferably be 3.0 to 5.0 cm.

3. Reasonable dense planting: The planting density of mung bean should be determined according to variety characteristics and soil fertility. Generally, the principles are: early-maturing varieties dense, late-maturing varieties sparse; upright types dense, semi-vining types sparse, vining types even sparser; fertile land sparse, poor land dense; early sowing sparse, late sowing dense. For mung bean, the suitable density for early-maturing varieties in low-water and low-fertility plots is 180,000 to 200,000 plants, with 11 to 15 seedlings retained per meter of row. For mid-maturing varieties under medium water and fertility conditions, the suitable density is 150,000 to 170,000 plants, with 8 to 10 seedlings retained per meter of row. For late-maturing varieties under high water and fertility conditions, the suitable density should be 120,000 to 140,000 plants, with 7 to 8 seedlings retained per meter of row.

Field Management

1. Compacting and replanting: After sowing, for plots with poor sowing moisture, timely compaction should be carried out, pressing as sowing proceeds, so that seeds are in close contact with the soil, surface moisture is increased, seed germination and development are promoted, and seedlings emerge early and completely. After mung bean emergence, if missing plants or broken rows are found, replanting should be completed within 7 days.

2. Thinning and final singling: To ensure good individual seedling development, thinning and final singling should be carried out. When mung bean seedlings reach the two-leaf and one-heart stage, clustered seedlings should be removed. Final singling is done at the 4-leaf stage, with a plant spacing of 13 to 16 cm, and a row spacing of about 40 cm for sole cropping. According to the predetermined density, remove weak, diseased, small, and mixed seedlings as well as weeds, and retain strong seedlings. Keeping one plant per position is beneficial for robust plant growth.

3. Intertillage and weeding: This not only eliminates weeds, but also breaks soil compaction, loosens the soil, reduces evaporation, raises soil temperature, and promotes rhizobial activity. It is a measure for increasing mung bean yield. Generally, after the first compound leaf of mung bean unfolds, the first shallow hoeing is done together with thinning. After the second compound leaf unfolds, final singling begins and the second intertillage is carried out. At the branching stage, the third deep intertillage is carried out, along with root covering and earthing up. Intertillage should continue until the rows close. The depth of intertillage should follow the principle of shallow-deep-shallow.

4. Irrigation and drainage: Mung bean is a crop that requires relatively more water, is not tolerant of waterlogging, and fears flooding. During the seedling stage, mung bean has strong drought resistance and needs less water. The flowering and podding stage is the peak water requirement period. At this time, if drought occurs, timely irrigation should be carried out. However, mung bean also fears waterlogging and flooding. If there is too much water at the seedling stage, root diseases will worsen, causing root rot and seedling death. If waterlogging occurs later, plants grow poorly, show premature aging, flowers and pods drop, and yield decreases. Therefore, during the rainy season, mung bean should be drained to prevent waterlogging.

Rational Fertilization

1. The fertilization principle for mung bean should be based mainly on organic fertilizer, supplemented by inorganic fertilizer, with mixed use of organic and inorganic fertilizers, sufficient basal fertilizer, and appropriate topdressing. Mung bean has a short growth period and strong tolerance to poor soil, and its root system also has symbiotic nitrogen fixation ability, so fertilization is often omitted in production. However, to increase mung bean yield in medium- and low-yield plots, fertilizer should be added. Generally, about 10 kg per mu of seed fertilizer diammonium phosphate or nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium compound fertilizer is applied. Topdressing for mung bean is best carried out at the flowering stage together with row closing. Per hectare, 40 to 60 kg of nitrogen fertilizer such as ammonium nitrate or urea, and 100 to 120 kg of potassium sulfate can be applied as topdressing.

2. For relatively poor plots, foliar topdressing can be carried out at the podding stage by spraying plant growth agents such as potassium dihydrogen phosphate, Fuer 655, Lüfeng 95, and Banger Yibianfeng on the leaves, with relatively obvious yield-increasing effects. In plots with higher fertility, the seedling stage should focus on control, and further topdressing should not be applied. Too much nitrogen fertilizer will lead to excessive vegetative growth, sprawling stems and leaves, shading in the field, plant lodging, serious flower and pod drop, and reduced mung bean yield.

3. Although mung bean rhizobia have nitrogen fixation ability, applying farmyard manure and phosphorus and potassium fertilizers has obvious yield-increasing effects. Farmyard manure can be applied once before sowing and then plowed into the soil. If basal fertilizer cannot be applied in time, a certain amount of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer should be applied at the early growth stage, that is, at branching and early flowering, to enhance rhizobial nitrogen fixation ability and increase flower bud differentiation. Increasing organic fertilizer, inoculating rhizobia, improving fertilization methods, and raising the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers: according to relevant reports, the nitrogen supplied by mung bean rhizobia can reach 50 to 70% of the total nitrogen required by mung bean. Therefore, rhizobium inoculation is one of the very economical and effective yield-increasing measures.

Timely Harvest

1. Generally, when 70 to 80% of the pods on the plants have matured, they should be picked in a timely manner on a sunny day.

2. For large-area mung bean plots, manual picking is difficult, so mung bean varieties with uniform maturity and non-shattering pods at maturity, such as Yulü No. 3, should be selected. After 70 to 80% of the beans have matured, harvest in the morning or evening.

3. It is preferable to harvest when more than two-thirds of the pods have turned black.

4. Because pods in different parts mature unevenly, varieties prone to pod shattering should be harvested in batches. For non-shattering varieties, when more than 2/3 of the pods in the whole field have turned black, they should be harvested all at once.