Why Is Gastrodia Low-Yielding? Latest Cause Analysis
Gastrodia is a valuable medicinal herb unique to China, with powerful medicinal effects. It can not only be used as medicine, but is also an important ingredient commonly used in daily life to make medicinal cuisine. The scarcity of wild resources has led to the rise of its artificial cultivation, but many medicinal herb growers experience extremely low yields when planting it, resulting in relatively low returns. So what are the reasons for low Gastrodia yield? Let's take a look.
1. Poor quality of Armillaria mellea
Armillaria mellea is the main nutrient source for Gastrodia, so the quality of Armillaria mellea is closely related to the yield of Gastrodia. During production, it generally needs to go through multiple operations such as detoxification and isolation before the strain can be used to cultivate fungal material for planting, so as to maintain quality. However, some medicinal herb growers, in order to save costs and increase profits, choose some ordinary strains when selecting Armillaria mellea, or use some old fungal material as the strain, which leads to strain degeneration and reduced vitality, so the yield is also not high.
2. Degeneration of Gastrodia seed stock
When cultivating Gastrodia, hybrid varieties are generally used. This is the same as crops such as corn and soybean; hybrid varieties have strong vitality and higher yields. However, traditional Gastrodia is mostly passed down from generation to generation. In order to save costs, the principle of self-breeding and self-use has always been adopted, resulting in the degeneration of Gastrodia seed stock, with vitality becoming lower and lower, so the yield also becomes worse year after year.
3. Poor soil permeability
No living thing can grow without breathing. This is true for animals, and also for plants. Generally, when planting Gastrodia, coarse sand or loose, humus-rich soil is used. If the planting soil is too sticky or is fine sand, this leads to poor soil permeability, making it unable to breathe normally, thereby affecting yield.
4. Waterlogging
Although Armillaria mellea can survive in water, as a plant, Gastrodia does not have this ability to survive underwater. If the soil has too much standing water or the groundwater level is relatively high, just a short 2-3 days will cause Gastrodia to die and rot in large areas.
5. Pests and diseases
Pests and diseases have always been a major reason affecting the development of medicinal herbs. When Gastrodia is cultivated in moist conditions, there are relatively few pests and diseases, but if the fungal material and basswood are not thoroughly disinfected and sterilized, they may carry other fungi. These will affect the growth of Armillaria mellea, compete with Armillaria mellea for nutrients and space, thereby preventing it from growing normally, and Gastrodia will also be unable to absorb nutrients normally, resulting in low yield. In addition, the pests are mainly underground pests, which gnaw on the hyphae and their rhizomes, leading to reduced yield.
The above is an introduction to the reasons for low Gastrodia yield. We hope it can help you. If you want to learn more related knowledge, please keep following us.