Early prevention of vine break and plant decline during the peak fruiting period of loofah
In deep winter, when managing loofah, do not overly promote flowers and fruit. If you force flower and fruit promotion in pursuit of yield, it will inevitably cause an imbalance in nutrient distribution. The stems and vines will become thin and weak and grow slowly due to insufficient nutrients, leading to premature aging of the plant and reduced yield. Therefore, in deep winter loofah management, attention must be paid to properly regulating nutrition...
The environment with too long sunlight hours in summer goes against the growth habits of loofah, which is the main reason for fewer female flowers and difficulty in fruit setting in summer loofah. Loofah is a short-day plant. The current day length is too long, which inhibits the flowering conditions of loofah, causes poor flower bud differentiation, and leads to a reduction in female flowers. Therefore, in summer loofah management, attention should be paid to shortening the daylight period. A shade net or straw mat can be covered over the greenhouse, and the covering time should preferably be before 8:00 a.m.At the same time, although loofah likes warmth and tolerates heat, the current excessively high greenhouse temperature, often above 40°C during the day and above 25°C at night, is not conducive to loofah growth. In particular, excessively high night temperature will greatly increase respiration consumption, and loofah plants are prone to excessive vegetative growth, with thin and weak stems, which in turn makes fruit setting difficult. Therefore, in summer loofah management, temperature control must be strengthened so that it not only meets the growth needs of loofah but also does not cause excessively high night temperature. Measures such as ventilation cooling, shading cooling, and water spraying cooling can be used to control the daytime temperature, keeping it at 30°C~35°C, and the night temperature is best reduced to around 20°C, to avoid excessive nutrient consumption.
In addition, untimely vine lowering or too small a vine-lowering range can also easily lead to excessive vegetative growth of loofah and difficulty in fruit setting. Therefore, summer loofah needs strengthened vine-lowering management. For loofah in the middle and late stages of the spring crop, vines should be lowered promptly along with fruit picking and pinching; for overwintering loofah in the early growth stage, while lowering vines promptly, increase the vine-lowering range, with each vine lowering no less than 80 cm, and keeping the plant height at about 120 cm.
To promote fruit setting in loofah, hormone regulation can also be combined. For overwintering loofah, plant growth regulators (such as ethephon, etc.) can be sprayed early to promote female flower differentiation and increase the flowering rate. For excessively vigorous plants, 5% chlormequat 2000-fold solution or 25% mepiquat chloride 750-fold solution can be sprayed for control, etc.