Greater galangal prefers warmth, fears waterlogging, and tolerates drought; master cultivation techniques to achieve high yields

Greater galangal is grown in soil and prefers warmth; it fears waterlogging, tolerates drought, and is slightly shade-tolerant. It is often intercropped or relay-intercropped with pineapple, cassava, citronella, and sisal. The planting site is best with fertile, loose sandy loam.

Site preparation: choose well-drained five-sided land or fertile, loose sloping land, first cut down weeds and miscellaneous trees and burn them on site into ash for fertilizer, then deep-plow 40-45 cm. After two plowings and two harrowings to make the soil thoroughly fine and crumbly, apply 2500-3000 kg of farmyard manure per mu as base fertilizer; no raised beds are needed.

Planting can use seedlings raised from seed for transplanting, or rhizomes can be used for direct field planting; our province mainly uses the latter propagation method. Because greater galangal has two cultivated types, "chicken ginger" and "cattle ginger", although the two have no difference in plant appearance, the former has small rhizomes while the latter has large rhizomes, so "cattle ginger" is mostly used as seed to obtain high yields. The planting method is: when harvesting greater galangal from April to June, dig up all the underground parts after cutting off the stems and leaves, select young, tender rhizomes of "cattle ginger" with 5-6 buds connected together and a thick, large body as seed (the old rhizomes are dried separately as product). On the prepared planting site, open furrows or small holes at a spacing of 45×75 cm between plants and rows, place 1 piece of ginger seed in each hole with the buds facing upward, fill with soil while placing the seed and firm it with the foot, then cover with 5-6 cm of fine soil.

Field management: for those planted in late spring and early summer, they generally sprout and grow in about 60 days, and weeding should be done once in that year. In the second year, after weeding, use a plow to open furrows and loosen the soil, and thereafter weed 1-2 times each year. If sufficient base fertilizer was applied at planting, little topdressing is done afterward. Trials show that proper topdressing after planting helps increase yield and product quality. To improve land utilization, short-term cash crops are often intercropped during the young stage.