How to Grow Chinese Gall? Detailed Explanation of Key Cultivation Techniques
Chinese gall is also called Baichongcang, Baiyaojian, and Bangzi. It is also an important traditional Chinese medicinal herb. Its medicinal properties are relatively broad, and it can be used to treat many diseases. It has effects such as astringing the lungs and reducing fire, astringing the intestines and stopping diarrhea, astringing sweat and stopping bleeding, and drying dampness and healing sores. It is often used to treat paddy field dermatitis, night sweats, cervical erosion, chronic diarrhea and chronic dysentery, and other diseases. Moreover, the cultivation techniques for Chinese gall are also quite troublesome. Let us take a look together below.
1. Growing Environment
Chinese gall has the characteristics of preferring warmth, preferring moisture, being drought-tolerant, cold-tolerant, barren-tolerant, afraid of waterlogging, and not tolerant of standing water. It has low requirements for soil, and generally soil that can grow crops can also be used to grow Chinese gall. Next, there must be horned gall aphids, belly gall aphids, summer host plants such as Rhus chinensis and Rhus punjabensis var. sinica, and winter host mosses. That is to say, the planting site must satisfy the growth of these aphids and parasitic plants, so that Chinese gall cultivation can have the basic conditions for success.
2. Cultivation Techniques
When planting Chinese gall, we can use the method of using existing gall forests and replanting gall trees, as well as the method of artificial afforestation. However, artificial afforestation costs too much and also requires a large number of saplings, so we had better use the method of using existing gall forests and replanting gall trees, or use seed propagation to raise seedlings for afforestation. The row spacing and plant spacing for planting are generally about 1.5 m, and at most 220 plants can be planted per mu. Next, select the moss species required by Chinese gall aphids, then cultivate moss in April and May each year. Generally, moss can grow in about three months. Finally, cut out moss blocks 50 cm in length and width. Of course, during the planting process, we also need to release autumn migrating aphids. We can manually collect autumn migrating aphids, or artificially rear the insects, and release them at the appropriate time.
3. Cultivation Management
After Chinese gall is planted, we need to observe the growth of the young trees and promptly control tree vigor. Generally speaking, during the growth of young trees, remove the shoot tips and control the tree height at about 2 m. At the same time, prune branches reasonably, mainly removing diseased branches, dead branches, dense branches, and excessive vegetative branches. Next, protect the vegetation to avoid damage to the growing environment, which would affect the growth of the winter host of Chinese gall. Also, Chinese gall cultivation differs from other cultivation in one respect: it does not require intertillage and weeding, and in this way the yield and quality of Chinese gall will be better. Finally, prevent leaf drop. You can use girdling on the fruiting trees of Chinese gall to achieve the effect of controlling leaf drop.
4. Pest and Disease Control
Although Chinese gall requires conditions such as gall aphids, summer host trees, and winter host mosses to grow, this does not mean that all insect pests have no effect on it. So what we need to do is prepare well for the prevention and control of pests and diseases. Among them, the main diseases are anthracnose and black spot disease, which can be controlled with mancozeb. Of course, carbendazim and thiophanate-methyl are also very effective. The main insect pests are broad-shouldered weevils, longhorn beetles, leaf-eating weevils, and other pests of this kind, which can generally be controlled with dimethoate.
The above are the key cultivation techniques for Chinese gall that the editor wants to share with you today. I hope it can help everyone. In fact, it does not look difficult to grow, but in actual operation it also requires professional cultivation techniques. Otherwise, it is very difficult to grow successfully, and this is also one of the reasons why Chinese gall is so scarce now.