Removing male flowers and tendrils from loofah to concentrate nutrients can promote high yields

    Reasonably thinning out male flowers and removing tendrils from loofah can reduce the consumption of nutrients in the soil and within the loofah plant itself, so that the nutrients are concentrated on supplying loofah growth and development, thereby increasing loofah yields. Trials have shown that, under otherwise identical cultivation and management conditions, loofah plants with male flowers thinned and tendrils removed showed increases of about 17.9%, 15.9% and 36.8% in fruit-setting rate per plant, single fruit weight and yield per unit area respectively, compared with loofah plants without such thinning and removal. The methods for thinning male flowers and removing tendrils from loofah are described below:

Loofah

    1. Thinning male flowers. Loofah is a cross-pollinated crop.Each female flower produces one fruit, and it takes about 15 days from flower bud appearance to loofah harvest. The male flowers are indeterminate racemes, and each raceme can open 20 to 35 flowers. The total number of male inflorescences exceeds the number of female inflorescences, and their pollination capacity far exceeds what the female flowers require. Because male inflorescences have a long flowering period of about 30 to 40 days, equivalent to 3 to 4 times the fruiting period of female flowers, they consume a large amount of nutrients during this time. Therefore, removing excess male inflorescences as early as possible can save nutrients and supply them for female flower fruiting.

    Method of thinning male flowers: starting from the appearance of female flower buds, remove 80% of the male inflorescences on each loofah plant and keep 20% for pollination.

    2. Removing tendrils.The tendrils of loofah play a role in climbing and securing the vines among vining crops. Loofah tendrils take a relatively long time from emergence to withering and death, and consume a lot of nutrients, which is not conducive to setting many fruits and setting good fruits. Removing the tendrils and using artificial tying instead of their climbing function is beneficial to the plant's photosynthesis, the production and accumulation of nutrients, and the prevention and control of pests and diseases, enabling loofah to pollinate and set fruit well and achieve a bumper harvest.

    3. Method of removing tendrils:In the early stage of loofah plant growth, remove tendrils while tying the vines to guide them onto the trellis; after the vines are evenly distributed and fixed on the trellis, simply remove the tendrils at any time as the vines are trained.