How to Grow A-Choy (Taiwan Lettuce) for High Yield? Key Planting Techniques Explained
Vegetables generally have a very high water content, so water is an important factor for high vegetable yields, and the other is fertilizer. So besides these factors, are there any others? Below, let's learn together about how to grow A-Choy (Taiwan Lettuce) for high yield!
1. Deep Plowing
A-Choy (Taiwan Lettuce) does not root deeply, but after years of planting, the surface soil has lower levels of various nutrients than the deeper layers, since deep soil, besides being undisturbed, has also accumulated nutrients over many years. Deep plowing is meant to give A-Choy a better soil environment, because it grows extremely fast and can mature in just about 2 months, so a higher-quality nutrient soil is necessary to ensure its development. Therefore, the first step to high yield is deep plowing, about 15 cm deeper than what people normally dig.
2. Extensive Composting
The fast growth of A-Choy requires abundant fertilizer to meet its growth needs, so initial composting is especially important. The composting here means mixing the fertilizer with the soil and letting it compost. Nowadays, many rural areas have special soil-loosening equipment: spread fermented manure evenly over the soil surface, mix it with a soil-loosening machine, and after 2 rounds of mixing, apply some chemical fertilizer, mix a third time, then wait three days before planting, giving the soil time to digest the fertility, and then plant.
3. Control Density
A single A-Choy plant needs a relatively large amount of nutrients, so blindly pursuing high density is not the way to high yield, and in the end it will only lead to poor growth all around. A reasonable planting density is a big help for high yield. Density depends on the local water and nutrient environment: for soil with good fertility, control the plant spacing at about 10-15 cm; for poor fertility, control the distance at about 15-20 cm. Control the span of each ridge at about 1.2 m, with a drainage ditch of about 20 cm reserved in the middle.
4. Maintain Moisture
Experienced growers know that A-Choy grown in paddy fields yields much more than in dry land. Also, as stated at the beginning of the article, vegetables have a very high water content, so their water requirements are also very high, and the drainage ditch mentioned earlier can also be used for irrigation. The moisture in an A-Choy field should keep the soil in a moist state for a long time, with a small amount of water present in the drainage ditch, thus building a moist growing environment for A-Choy, and its leaves will also grow much faster, achieving the effect of high yield.
High vegetable yields are actually about creating a growing environment more suitable for them, letting them make maximum use of nutrients and grow to the ideal result. If you have ways to improve things based on their growth habits, you can experiment with them too.