For kidney beans, remove leaves first, then pinch the growing tips: earlier harvest brings higher returns
Currently, greenhouse-cultivated kidney beans are in the vine-extension and flowering stage. How can you ensure a bumper harvest? Here, the reporter suggests that vegetable growers grasp the following key measures for management. First, pinch the tips at the right time. Greenhouse kidney beans and open-field kidney beans have different cultivation environment conditions. Because the temperature inside the greenhouse is higher, the growth rate...
After kidney beans finish picking one round of pods, the side branches take a relatively long time to sprout, and most winter-spring kidney beans must be marketed around the Spring Festival when prices are higher. Therefore, finding ways to make them set more pods at this stage and go to market early is something many kidney bean growers want to achieve. Master Zhang Kecai of Dongxia Town, Qingzhou City, by removing leaves first and then pinching the growing tips, increased kidney bean yield and happened to catch the high-price period before the Spring Festival for market.First, remove leaves. After kidney beans finish picking one round of pods, first thin out the excess old leaves and yellow leaves on the lower part, then among the three leaflets on each petiole of the kidney bean, remove the middle one. The purpose is to reduce nutrient consumption so the plant concentrates nutrients to promote side bud sprouting. The amount of leaf removal depends on the plant's condition. When branches and leaves are dense and shade each other, remove more; otherwise remove less, and generally it should not exceed one third of the plant's total leaves. After removing leaves, strengthen fertilizer and water management. You can apply 20 kg of compound fertilizer per mu with irrigation water, and combined with routine fertilizer and water management, spray foliar fertilizer such as 0.2% urea mixed with 0.3% potassium dihydrogen phosphate to promote earlier sprouting of side buds.
Second, pinch the growing tips. Generally, after kidney beans climb onto the trellis, all side shoots below the first flower cluster can be removed. When the main vine reaches the top of the trellis, pinch the tip. Later side branches should also have their tips pinched after setting pods. Pinching the main vine promotes side branch growth, while removing side shoots and pinching side branch tips promotes pod growth. In addition, pinching tips also helps control excessive vegetative growth. Kidney bean roots are deep and drought-tolerant, and growth is vigorous, making it more prone than other vegetables to excessive vegetative growth. When cultivated in greenhouses, with weak light, high temperature, and sufficient fertility, vigorous vegetative growth is even more common, which in turn affects flowering and pod setting. Therefore, for excessively vigorous plants, besides controlling through temperature and chemicals at ordinary times, timely tip pinching is a good method.
Although Master Zhang's method of removing leaves first and then pinching the growing tips is only a small improvement, it advanced his kidney bean fruiting by more than ten days, and the yield also increased greatly. Compared with the same period in previous years, the yield increased by more than 300 jin, and up to now he has already sold more than one thousand yuan extra.