What are the latest cultivation methods for Bletilla striata seedlings?

Bletilla striata is also known as lian ji cao, gan gen, bai gei, etc. It is the tuber of Bletilla striata, a perennial herbaceous bulbous plant of the genus Bletilla in the orchid family. It has extensive medicinal value and garden value. Medicinally it is mainly used to astringe and stop bleeding, reduce swelling and promote tissue regeneration, and ornamentally it can be potted indoors or used to accent more shaded flower platforms, flower borders or courtyards. Now let us take a look at how Bletilla striata seedlings are cultivated!

How are Bletilla striata seedlings cultivated?

1. Division: Bletilla striata is commonly propagated by division. Before new leaves sprout in spring or after the aboveground parts wither in autumn and winter, dig up the old plants, divide the pseudobulbs and replant them. Each plant can be divided into 3 to 5 plants, but the propagation cycle is long, the efficiency is low and the amount of seed material consumed is large, so it is difficult to meet the needs of large-scale cultivation.

2. Sowing: Bletilla striata can be propagated by sowing, but its seeds are very small and contain only an incompletely developed embryo made up of a few cells, so under natural conditions they are very difficult to germinate and grow, and the cultivation of seedlings grown from seed is relatively difficult.

3. Tissue culture: Bletilla striata tissue culture technology can rapidly propagate large numbers of seedlings. Usually sterile sowing is carried out on a culture medium, and after the seeds germinate, tissue culture methods are used for clonal propagation, thereby achieving large-scale production of Bletilla striata seedlings.

How are Bletilla striata seedlings selected?

1. Variety identification: There are very many varieties of Bletilla striata, but among these varieties only five or six meet medicinal standards, and only three can achieve high yields. If you do not have the ability to identify them yourself and merely trust the one-sided claims of seedling suppliers, it is entirely possible to buy inferior varieties.

2. Seedling selection: The most common ways to cultivate Bletilla striata seedlings are direct seeding, tuber propagation and tissue-cultured seedlings. Among them, the most reasonable and most economical is direct seeding; tuber propagation has a high survival rate and large yield, but the cost is too high; the lowest survival rate is with tissue-cultured seedlings.

3. Beware of hormone-treated seedlings: There can be a gap of 1 to 3 months in the emergence time of Bletilla striata, but some companies abuse hormones and chemical fertilizers to advance the emergence time by more than 5 months. Seedlings treated with growth hormones look very healthy, but after transplanting they easily turn yellow and wither and die.

4. Ordering time: In theory Bletilla striata can be planted all year round, but the most suitable seasons are spring and autumn. Spring is most suitable for planting domesticated seedlings, and early autumn is also fairly suitable for planting domesticated seedlings. In late autumn and winter, tubers are generally purchased, and planting in summer is generally not recommended.

What risks are involved in growing Bletilla striata?

1. Market risk: Apart from the traditional areas of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, artificial cultivation of Bletilla striata has now begun in places from Shaanxi and Henan in the north, to Fujian and Guangxi in the south, to Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the east, and to Gansu in the west. Therefore, overheating of production is bound to create a certain risk for Bletilla striata cultivation.

2. Investment risk: Compared with other planting projects, Bletilla striata cultivation requires much greater investment cost, and it takes 2 to 3 years to grow. Such investment cost and production cycle are simply beyond the capacity of ordinary farmers to bear, and at the same time they increase investment risk.

3. Seed source risk: The chaos of Bletilla striata seed sources is notorious among Chinese medicinal materials. At present, what circulates in the chemical industry is purple-flowered trifoliate large Bletilla striata, while what is mainly used medicinally in the pharmacopoeia is purple-flowered trifoliate small Bletilla striata. Other yellow-flowered and white-flowered Bletilla striata, etc., are customary substitutes and adulterants.

4. Technical risk: Bletilla striata seedlings usually have to go through introduction of seed sources, tissue culture, hardening and development of a vigorous root system before transplanting. However, because the growth of the rhizome requires an environment with symbiotic fungi and transplanting and management are very meticulous, the death rate of seedlings can usually reach 50% or even higher.