What technical points need to be mastered for catechu cultivation?
Catechu, also known as catechu paste, child catechu, and black catechu, is the catechu tree, a plant of the genus Acacia in the Fabaceae family. It is used to clear heat, promote fluid production, and stop bleeding, and is mainly used for lung-heat cough, hemoptysis, diarrhea, and indigestion in children; externally it is used for chronic non-healing sores, skin eczema, mouth sores, and tonsillitis. It is distributed in southern Yunnan, and is cultivated on Hainan Island. Morphological characteristics: a deciduous tree, 6-13 m tall. Branchlets are slender and have thorns. The leaves are bipinnately even-compound, alternate; at the base of the leaf rachis there are paired flat thorns; 10-20 pairs of pinnae are borne on the rachis; each pinna has 30-50 pairs of leaflets, and the leaflets are linear and sparsely hairy on both sides. It flowers in August-September, with racemes born in the leaf axils; the base of the calyx is connate into a tube, the upper part is divided, and sparsely hairy; petals 5, long lanceolate, yellow or white; stamens numerous, extending beyond the corolla; pistil 1, ovary superior, long ovate. The pod is flat and thin, 6-12 cm long including the stalk, 1-2 cm wide, with 7-8 seeds.
I. Sowing
It is a tropical sun-loving tree species, likes a warm and humid environment, is not cold-tolerant, and should be cultivated on sunny slopes.
Catechu is suitable for direct sowing, sown at the beginning of the rainy season. On the selected land, dig pits 45 cm deep and 60 cm wide at a spacing of 240 cm * 300 cm, apply sufficient base fertilizer, then fill in an appropriate amount of fine soil, then sow 5-6 seeds per pit, and cover with soil after sowing, just enough to cover the seeds; too thick a cover affects emergence. When the seedlings are 10 cm tall, thin them in batches, removing the weak and keeping the strong, and fill gaps where seedlings are missing. Finally, it is best to keep one plant per pit.
II. Field management
1. Weeding and loosening the soil: weeds should be removed and the soil loosened 2-3 times each year. First, completely clear the weeds near the plants and loosen the soil. Then completely clear the surrounding weeds and cover them near the plants, which can increase soil fertility and help resist drought and preserve seedlings.
2. Increasing topdressing: in order to make catechu grow rapidly and begin production earlier, topdressing should be applied. When weeding in July-August, dig pits near the plants, put the removed weeds into the pits, then apply 0.75-1.5 kg of superphosphate or ammonium sulfate per plant, mixing with the grass as topdressing. (
3. Pruning and setting supports: catechu mainly uses the stem heartwood, and if there are too many branches, the heartwood yield is affected, so branches should be pruned. Young trees have drooping top branches, so supports should be set to allow normal growth.
III. Harvesting and processing
The catechu tree can be felled and processed after growing for 15 years. Because the older it is, the more heartwood it has and the greater the paste yield, it can be harvested and processed at the appropriate time according to growth conditions and the state purchase plan.
It is best to harvest in winter. Cut down mature plants together with the roots, remove the bark and sapwood, chop the red-yellow heartwood into pieces, add water, boil, and filter; concentrate the filtrate into a syrup, pour it into a specially made mold, and make it into small blocks 25-70 cm square; after cooling and drying, it is ready.
IV. Seed preservation
The seeds mature in March and should be collected in time; if not collected when due, the pods fall off. Collection method: knock them down with a bamboo pole and gather them, sun-dry for 1-2 days, and when the pods split, remove the seeds; select large, plump ones as seed, store them in cloth bags, and hang them in a ventilated and dry place until sowing. Seeds collected in the current year should be sown in the current year; if sown the following year, the germination rate decreases significantly.