Planting Methods and Key Technical Points for Natural Indigo
Natural indigo is also known as woad, lanlu, Malay indigo, and Polygonum indigo, among other names; it is a plant in the Polygonaceae family. Natural indigo is also an excellent traditional Chinese medicinal herb, commonly used to clear heat and remove toxins, cool the blood and eliminate blotches, and purge fire and calm fright. Of course, it also has certain industrial uses and can be used for printing and dyeing; secondly, using it to draw eyebrows is also excellent. So how is natural indigo generally grown? Let us learn about its planting methods together below.
1. Site Selection and Land Preparation
Natural indigo is highly adaptable to its environment and can be grown in most regions of our country, and it has also been widely cultivated in our country, with places such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Hebei, and ** all being major production areas for natural indigo. When choosing a planting site for natural indigo, we should try to select a sunny, well-drained, loose-textured, fertile sandy loam soil for planting. Try to plow the land more than 30 cm deep, break the soil clods into fine pieces, rake the ground level, and apply a heavy base fertilizer, mainly barnyard manure, turning it into the soil and mixing it evenly. Finally, according to the different terrain of the planting site, make flat beds or raised beds, open drainage ditches, and sun-dry the soil, sowing when the surface is relatively dry.
2. Scientific Sowing
For natural indigo seeds, select high-quality seeds free of pests and diseases. Before sowing, we need to soak the seeds in warm water at about 30 degrees, stirring continuously during the soaking process. After soaking for three to four hours, scoop them out, drain the water, put them into fine soil and stir evenly, and then they can be sown. Natural indigo can generally be planted in two seasons, namely spring sowing and summer sowing, and when sowing, drilling or broadcasting is usually adopted. The row spacing for drilling is about 20 cm; evenly scatter the seeds and cover with a thin layer of soil. Under normal conditions, seedlings emerge in about a week.
3. Field Management
After the seedlings emerge, we should carry out appropriate shallow plowing, combined with weeding. During the process of cultivating and weeding, do not press soil onto the young seedlings. When the seedlings grow to about 5 to 10 cm, pull out the overly dense weak seedlings in the field, and appropriately thin and even out the seedlings; the spacing of the established plants is about 10 cm. After the plants survive transplanting, carry out cultivating and weeding, and water and fertilize reasonably. Generally, fertilizing about three to four times a year is enough, watering generally two to three times is sufficient, while weeding and loosening the soil need to be done frequently. The main fertilizer is barnyard manure, combined with the use of potassium fertilizer and phosphorus fertilizer.
4. Pest and Disease Control
Natural indigo has quite a lot of pests and diseases, so we must be very careful and meticulous during the planting process and do a good job in preventing pests and diseases. The main diseases include white rust, black spot, gray spot, sclerotinia, downy mildew, and powdery mildew, which can be controlled with Bordeaux mixture, zineb, thiophanate-methyl, and ziram wettable powder respectively. Secondly, it suffers the greatest harm from pests such as the small measuring worm, cabbage butterfly, clouded yellow butterfly, and pea leafminer, and we can use low-toxicity insecticides such as deltamethrin, dimethoate, and trichlorfon for prevention.
The above are the planting methods for natural indigo. I believe everyone has gained a new understanding of growing natural indigo. Here, the editor has only briefly introduced the planting methods for natural indigo and its pest and disease control; many detailed issues have not been analyzed in detail. If you are interested, you can follow us or leave a message for the editor.