How should seed ginger be treated? Keep these precautions in mind

Treating seed ginger is an important step in ginger production. If it is not handled properly, the ginger will not only fail to sprout, but also risk rotting. Even if it does not rot, it will sprout slowly and unevenly, and the yield will be very low. Therefore, seed ginger should be scientifically treated before sowing.

1. Sunning the seed: About one week before sowing, spread the selected whole seed ginger in a single layer in a sunny, sheltered, dry and warm place to sun it. Spread it out at 8-9 am each day and bring it back at 4-5 pm. On the next day of sunning, turn the ginger seeds over at noon. After several days of sunning and turning, the outer skin of the seed ginger becomes dry and whitish and slightly wrinkled, which means it has been sunned well.

2. Sprouting: After sunning the seed, carry out sprouting. Sprouting can promote the seed ginger buds to germinate as soon as possible, so that seedlings emerge quickly and evenly, and is therefore a very important technical measure. A commonly used sprouting method is to put the seed ginger into a bamboo basket lined with rice straw, with the heads facing inward and the feet facing outward; after placing them layer by layer, cover with a straw curtain or rice straw, keep the basket moist and at a temperature of 20-30 degrees, and take them out after more than 20 days when the young buds have grown to about 1 cm. They can also be placed in a greenhouse or plastic tunnel and kept at a temperature above 20 degrees for sprouting. During sprouting, a specially assigned person should be responsible for management and problems should be solved promptly when found; this is the key to successful sprouting. After the seed ginger has sprouted, next do a good job of carefully selecting the seed ginger, removing those seed ginger pieces that are yellowed, have many thin and weak buds, have weak bud tips, are diseased, or do not sprout.

3. Breaking into pieces: After the ginger buds have all emerged, first select whole pieces, then select buds and break them into pieces. Be sure to use plump ginger and do not use thin ginger. A whole piece of ginger weighing 0.5 kg is best broken into 10-12 pieces, with only 1 strong bud kept on each piece, dipped in plant ash and planted after Grain Rain and before the Beginning of Summer.