When to plant red chicory? A detailed guide to planting times

When planting red chicory, try to choose the spring and autumn seasons. Winter temperatures are low, so red chicory grows slowly and, affected by the temperature, forms smaller heads and yields less. Summer, on the other hand, is too hot, which makes the leaf heads less pure in color. And if you want to provide suitable temperatures for growing red chicory, you also need to build a shed at the planting site to shade it from the sun or block wind and cold.

Now that everyone understands the sowing time for red chicory, planting red chicory involves more than just knowing the planting time. Below, I will talk about what other points to note when growing red chicory.

Points to note when growing red chicory

1. Choose a place with loose soil and relatively high organic matter content for planting. During the growing process, add more materials such as straw and cow manure to make the soil fertile, which is good for the growth of red chicory.

2. The planting spacing is also very important. Planting too densely or too sparsely will both affect the growth of red chicory. Generally, a spacing of about 30 cm is better. When transplanting, the soil should be kept moist; you can choose to water three days earlier.

3. To make the leaves grow better, you must fertilize at intervals. Nitrogen fertilizer and urea are essential, and pest and weed control must also be done properly. It is best to fertilize about once every eight days and check the growth conditions.

That is all for today's content. Regarding planting time and points to note when planting, growing anything is not easy and all require effort. Finally, I hope everyone can grow delicious red chicory.

Chicory Chicory

Chicory is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Cichorium in the Asteraceae family. The root is fleshy, short and thick. The stem is erect, ridged, hollow, and much branched. The leaves are alternate, long oblanceolate; the flower heads are capitulate, the corolla ligulate, and the flower color is blue. This plant is cold-tolerant and drought-tolerant, and prefers to grow in sunny places such as field edges and hillsides. It is distributed both domestically and abroad. Chicory is a medicinal and edible plant. Chicory leaves can be used to make lettuce, and it has been introduced and cultivated in Sichuan (Chengdu) and Guangdong in China. Its root contains inulin and aromatic substances, and can be used to make a coffee substitute, promoting the activity of the human digestive organs. The aboveground parts and roots of the plant can be used medicinally; the Chinese medicine names are chicory and chicory root respectively, and they have effects such as clearing heat and detoxifying, promoting diuresis and reducing swelling, and strengthening the stomach. In addition, chicory can also become roughage or forage grass.

Chicory is 40-100 cm tall. The stem is erect, solitary, with spreading or extremely spreading branches; all stems and branches are green, striate-ridged, covered with very sparse long curved rough hairs or bristles, or nearly hairless. The basal leaves are rosulate, present at flowering, oblanceolate to oblong, including the gradually narrowed petiole at the base, 15-34 cm long and 2-4 cm wide, with a gradually narrowed winged petiole at the base, runcinately pinnatifid or pinnatifid, or not divided but with margins.

Basic information on chicory

Chinese scientific name: chicory

Latin scientific name: Cichorium intybus L.

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Angiosperms

Class: Dicotyledoneae

Subclass: Sympetalae

Order: Campanulales

Family: Asteraceae

Genus: Cichorium

Classification system: Engler system, 1964

Chicory cultivation methods

Cultivation of fleshy roots

Because the fleshy roots used for blanching are needed in large quantities, they should be cultivated in open fields. Generally, the fleshy roots grown from 1 mu of open field can supply 50-60 sq m of blanching beds for the milky yellow (white) varieties, and 23-25 sq m for the red bud ball varieties.

(1) Land selection Choose sandy loam with deep soil layers, fertile and loose soil, finely crushed soil particles, and good air permeability, and the planting plot should have convenient drainage and irrigation.

(2) Land preparation, applying base fertilizer, and making beds Before sowing, the previous crop should be cleared as early as possible, and the residual plants and weeds of the previous crop should be removed. Spray 1.5-2.5 kg of carbaryl insecticide per mu, then shallow plow twice with a rotary tiller to a depth of about 15 cm. Combined with plowing, spread 3,000-5,000 kg of high-quality decomposed organic fertilizer per mu, and mix in 30 kg of superphosphate, or 50 kg of long-acting compound fertilizer, spread evenly and mix thoroughly by rotary tillage, then level the plot. Make small raised beds oriented north-south, with the bed width including the ditch about 100 cm. Open a ditch on the west side of the bed so that the bed surface and the ditch bottom form a turtle-back-shaped bed ridge about 15 cm high.

(3) Direct sowing or seedling transplanting

Direct sowing in open fields. Chicory is suitable for direct sowing. Direct sowing produces straighter and smoother fleshy roots, and blanching cultivation takes up less space, so more can be planted to increase yield per unit area. Autumn sowing is the main method. In the Beijing area, for modern popular varieties such as "ZOOM" (the Wom series varieties), "White River", red chicory, etc., the most suitable sowing period is from June to mid-to-late July; if sown too early, because of high temperatures and long sunshine, the rate of premature bolting is very high; if sown too late, the plant's fleshy roots are not plump enough, small and relatively thin, affecting the yield and quality of the bud balls. Sowing at the right time allows the seedling stage to avoid the high-temperature period, greatly reducing the premature bolting rate, and the plants have sufficient growth time to develop solid taproots.

A. Sowing rate: 200-250 g.

B. Sowing method: On the west side of the small raised bed, open shallow furrows at a row spacing of 30 cm, with a furrow depth of 3 cm, and sow thinly in rows or in holes. After sowing, cover with soil about 1 cm thick; it should not be too thick. If the sowing period encounters heavy rainy days, sow after the heavy rain. If the season is already late and you need to sow before or during rain, it is better to use hole sowing or dibbling. After sowing, cover with plastic film, and cut the film open once seedlings emerge. Thin out overly dense seedlings. When there are 3-4 true leaves, thin to final seedlings, with a final plant spacing of 15 cm. Seedling transplanting. If the sowing period encounters consecutive days of heavy rain, open-field direct sowing often suffers from missing seedlings and broken rows because seeds or young seedlings are washed away by rain just as they emerge; or if the planting plot cannot be vacated in time, seedling transplanting should be adopted. Ordinary seedling methods will damage roots when lifting seedlings, causing the later fleshy taproots to become forked roots, or curved roots, or to have more fibrous roots; during blanching cultivation this takes up more land and affects yield per unit area, so it is best to use small nutrient soil blocks or plug trays for raising seedlings. The simplest and most effective seedling method is to use 288-cell plug trays for raising seedlings, so that when transplanting young seedlings and pulling them out, the roots are not easily damaged; or use old newspaper to make paper tubes filled with nutrient soil, so that when transplanting the seedlings the soil ball does not break apart and the roots are not damaged, giving a high survival rate.

Characteristics of chicory: It is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Cichorium in the Asteraceae family, and is a new forage plant variety bred in New Zealand in the early 1980s. On November 18, 1997, it was examined and registered by the National Forage and Feed Variety Approval Committee as a new forage variety. The average height of chicory during the rosette leaf stage is 40 cm, and the average plant height during the stem-elongation and flowering stage is 170 cm, with some reaching 200 cm. The stem is erect, hollow, and striate-ridged, with many branches. The basal leaves are pinnatifid or not divided, toothed, sparsely silky-hairy, with leaf blades 10-40 cm long and 5-8 cm wide. The stem leaves are smaller, lanceolate. The capitulum is solitary at the branch tips or 2-3 clustered in the leaf axils; the flowers are ligulate, blue; the seeds are wedge-shaped, with a 1000-seed weight of 1.2-1.5 g.

(1) Location for forcing

It can be set up in a cold frame, greenhouse, cellar, glasshouse, or even an open-field dug bed, or containers such as tall plastic buckets and wooden boxes can be used and placed in an idle room. It is basically divided into two methods: soil culture and water culture.

(2) Soil culture method

Preparation of the forcing bed. Choose a plastic greenhouse, solar greenhouse, or idle room where the temperature can be kept stable at 8-20 degrees C, and use clean sandy field soil or coarse river

sand as the cultivation substrate, spread into a forcing bed 30 cm thick, level it, and set aside. If using a cold frame, a trench can be dug directly in the ground, about 100-150 cm wide, preferably so that a person standing at the edge of the trench can reach the center by stretching out a hand. The depth is 20-30 cm, and the length depends on the site. If temperature control is needed and conditions permit, lay heating wire at the bottom of the trench, then cover with 3 cm of soil for later use. Treatment of chicory taproots. Divide the chicory fleshy roots into 3 grades, large, medium, and small, according to different lengths, break off rotten leaves, and for roots longer than 20 cm, cut off the tail end. Forcing method. Plant roots of different sizes separately in the forcing bed, arranging fleshy roots of the same grade one next to another. Roots thicker than 6 cm can be placed tightly next to each other; roots with a transverse diameter less than 6 cm should be spaced 2-3 cm apart. After filling a trench, scatter sand or soil to fill the gaps, water thoroughly, and after the water has seeped in, cover with 10-15 cm of soil, leaving about 20 cm of space above the trench. Set up a frame and cover with black film or another light-blocking material to block light. If the temperature is controlled at 18-20 degrees C, uncover the film after about 20 days to inspect. When yellow-white bud tips are seen just emerging from the covering soil or sand, uncover the mud and sand and harvest the bud balls. About 25 kg of bud balls are harvested per sq m. Used trench beds and sand or soil cannot be used for forcing again and must be redone in another location. To extend the harvest period, the most economical forcing method in North China can also be outdoors in the open field. Before the winter freeze, dig trenches (the method is the same as in protected cultivation), plant the chicory root crowns in the trenches, cover with about 20 cm of fine sandy soil or river sand, and add straw curtains on top or leave them open to overwinter under natural temperatures, but frequent checking is needed in early spring. If no straw curtains are used in winter, harvest can be delayed until early April.

(3) Water culture method

The principle is basically the same as soil culture; it can carry out three-dimensional production and mechanized operation, and production efficiency is higher. With the water culture method, the root crowns must be washed clean, and a small part of the root tip of the fleshy root should be removed, which promotes the growth of bud balls and makes the bud balls firmer and thicker, giving better market quality. The water quality must be clean to prevent soft rot of the roots during water culture. It is best to use flowing water, or change the water frequently. The water level should be below 1/2 and above 1/3 of the fleshy root, which is more appropriate. Temperature, humidity, and light blocking must be strictly controlled, especially the temperature, which must not be higher than 20 degrees C. If it is higher than 20 degrees C, as the temperature rises, the weight of the bud balls decreases and the rate of opening and loosening increases sharply. The relative air humidity in the cultivation bed should be kept above 95%. Bud balls formed under low humidity conditions are loose, light in weight, and high in fiber, with a poor taste when eaten. At the same time, because the upper part of the fleshy root is not covered, under weak natural light and weak lamplight, greening of the bud balls occurs within 1-2 hours. After more than 5 hours, the outer leaves and the tips of the inner leaves of the bud balls will noticeably turn green, and quality declines. Therefore, movements during operation should be quick to reduce as much as possible the time the forcing room is exposed to light.

Nutritional value of chicory

Chicory leaves are tender and juicy, rich in nutrients. The crude protein content during the rosette stage is 22.87%, and the crude protein content at the early flowering stage is 14.73%, averaging 17%, with crude protein yield reaching 250 kg/mu. At the early flowering stage, it contains 2.1% crude fat and 30.6% crude fiber. Chicory is rich in amino acids; the content of 9 essential amino acids during the rosette stage is higher than that of alfalfa meal, and it is rich in vitamins, carotene, and calcium. Chicory has good palatability and a high utilization rate, and cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and rabbits all like to eat it.

Medicinal value of chicory

An infusion of wild chicory flowers injected into animals can excite the central nervous system and strengthen heart activity (increased amplitude and slowed rate). The decoction has antibacterial and astringent effects. The root can increase appetite and improve digestive function; a high-concentration infusion can increase gastric secretion but does not increase smooth muscle tension. The ethanol or ether extract of the root has antibacterial effects, and its active ingredient may be a sesquiterpene. The root also has a mild laxative effect. The seeds contain a nonspecific plant hemagglutinin. Some people have also reported that chicory contains carcinogenic hydrocarbons, at levels higher than other coffee-type beverages.

Distribution of chicory

Distributed in Beijing (Baihua Mountain), Heilongjiang (Raohe), Liaoning (Dalian), Shanxi (Fenyang), Shaanxi (Xi'an, Meixian, Zhouzhi), **(Altay, Habahe, Fuhai, Tacheng, Toli, Yumin, Bole, Shawan, Manas, Urumqi, Miquan, Yining, Chabucha'er), Jiangxi (Suichuan). Widely distributed in Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

The meaning of the internet slang "juju"

"Juju", pronounced jú jù. It is a homophone of "juju" and is an affectionate honorific, not sarcasm. Just as great heroes and great masters are affectionately called "dada" and mockingly called "daxia", those even more powerful than great heroes and great masters are called "great heroes" and "great masters", so they are affectionately called "juju", also written as "juju".

For example: I kneel to the male "juju" in the liberal arts.