Where Can You Buy Red Chicory Seeds? Plus a Guide to Raising Seedlings

Red chicory is a seawater vegetable, also known as blanching white chicory, heading red chicory, and so on. Its flavor is crisp and slightly sweet, making it a very popular vegetable. If you want to grow red chicory, do you know where the seeds are sold? Let's find out below.

Where can you buy red chicory seeds?

Red chicory seeds can be bought online, or at local seed shops and agricultural supply stores. But note that many seed dealers sell expired or inferior seeds, and some seed merchants mix in fake or poor-quality seeds. So when choosing seeds, give priority to merchants who have been in business a long time and have a good reputation, to avoid buying inferior and fake seeds. If you are a beginner at growing vegetables and have no specific knowledge of the various seed merchants, take a risk-spreading approach: buy a little of each type of seed from each dealer, mix the seeds from all sources together after bringing them home, and then sow. This greatly reduces the risk of a total crop failure.

How to raise red chicory seedlings

1. Planting time

In summer it can be grown in cool regions, for example in mountain areas above 300 m. For autumn cultivation, in the Beijing area sowing is generally done in June, transplanting in mid-to-late July, and harvesting can begin successively in October. In winter it can be grown in a solar greenhouse, sown in August, transplanted in September, and harvested around the Spring Festival.

2. Sowing

The sowing period for red chicory differs slightly depending on the variety. The optimal sowing period is from June to mid-to-late July, so the seedling stage avoids the high-temperature period; sowing too early or too late will affect the yield of the sprouts. Prepare the substrate to standard using urea and monopotassium phosphate, mix thoroughly, fill trays, water thoroughly, then sow by dibbling, cover with soil and film, and remove the film promptly once the seedlings emerge.

3. Transplanting

Seedlings can be transplanted once they have 3-5 leaves. The row spacing varies by variety: for early-maturing varieties, plant at a spacing of about 35*35 cm; for mid-to-late-maturing varieties, about 40*40 cm.

4. Field management

If the weather is dry after emergence, water several times in succession, but do not flood the seedlings; stop watering once the water reaches the ridge surface, and water again a few days later after the ridge surface dries. About 20 days after emergence, apply nitrogen fertilizer 1-2 times depending on seedling condition, and apply a compound fertilizer once before the plants close the rows. After sowing, once the fleshy roots have formed (about 90 days), spray with monopotassium phosphate 1-2 times and keep the soil moist, to benefit the next stage of storage and blanching cultivation.

Red chicory is still a new vegetable in our country. Although it is cultivated in central and northern China and other places, production far lags behind sales. As they say, things are precious when they are scarce, and red chicory is certainly no exception. The market price of red chicory is relatively high, at around 30 to 40 yuan per kg, making it a vegetable with relatively high growing returns.

For wonderful pictures and articles and popular comments about red chicory, you may be interested in the content recommended below by Nongxun Network. Welcome to read.

Agricultural products you may be interested in: premium red chicory seeds supplied nationwide