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Detailed Explanation of Faba Bean Planting Methods and Technical Points

Growing Techniques By Emily Carter 0 views
Fruit vegetables

Faba bean (scientific name: Vicia faba L.): an annual herb of the Fabaceae family, 30-100 cm tall. The main root is short and thick, with many fibrous roots; the root nodules are pink and densely clustered. The stem is stout, upright, four-angled, hollow and hairless. The even-pinnate compound leaves have a leaf axis whose tip tendril is reduced to a short pointed tip; the stipules are halberd-shaped or nearly triangular-ovate, slightly serrate, with dense dark purple glandular dots; the leaflets are usually hairless on both surfaces. The raceme is axillary, with the pedicel nearly absent; the calyx is bell-shaped, with lanceolate calyx teeth, the lower calyx teeth longer; 2-4 (6) flowers are borne in clusters in the leaf axils, with a white corolla; the style is densely covered with white soft hairs. The pod is thick and fleshy, and the skin turns black after ripening. The seed is oblong-rounded, nearly rectangular, concave in the middle, with a leathery seed coat, blue-green, gray-green to brown, rarely purple or black; the hilum is linear and black. The flowering period is April-May, and the fruiting period is May-June.


Spring sowing

Land preparation and fertilization: Spring sowing mainly promotes the technique of ridging and film mulching. To improve drought resistance, water storage and soil moisture conservation, it is best to use autumn film mulching or top-freezing film mulching; in years with lighter drought, film mulching can also be done before spring sowing by taking advantage of soil moisture. For fields with autumn film mulching and top-freezing film mulching, the seepage holes should be opened in time, and along the ridge furrow about every 50 cm, small holes with a diameter of less than 0.5 cm should be opened in the plastic film with a thin bamboo pole or similar, so that rainwater can infiltrate in time. The ridging specification is alternating 40 cm wide small ridges and 70 cm wide large ridges, with a ridge height of 10-15 cm, then covering the ridge surface with 120 cm wide plastic film; the two sheets of plastic film meet on top of the large ridge, and the joint is sealed with soil, and on the mulched ridges and along the ridge furrows, soil is pressed horizontally about every 3 m to form soil belts, so as to compact the plastic film and form full film mulching on the ridges and ridge furrows.
Land preparation, fertilization and underground pest control are carried out simultaneously. For plots with lower soil fertility, apply 15 kg of compound fertilizer (10:10:10) per mu, then carry out film mulching; for plots where underground pests occur frequently, choose phoxim granules mixed with compound fertilizer and broadcast them before film mulching.
Sowing at the right time: sow early in time, generally from mid-to-late March to early April, to ensure uniform, neat and strong seedlings.
Reasonable close planting: for plots with medium or higher fertility, it is suitable to keep about 15,000 plants per mu. Plant by hole sowing in furrows with wide and narrow rows, with an average row spacing of 55 cm; manual dibbling generally uses a hole spacing of 20 cm, opening holes and sowing along the furrow between the large and small ridges, with 2-3 seeds per hole and 2-3 seedlings retained per hole; seedlings can be retained in an alternating pattern of 2 plants, 3 plants, 2 plants, 3 plants... per hole.
Field management:
  1. Seedling stage management. For faba bean grown with film mulching, after dibbling, immediately cover the sowing holes with ash soil or fine sandy soil to help compact the plastic film and prevent crusting; if crusting occurs, break it in time and release the seedlings in time. In addition, at the seedling stage, special attention should be paid to controlling pests such as root nodule weevils; ensuring the emergence rate of faba bean is key. At the same time, for weak seedlings at the seedling stage, combine intertillage and weeding with a topdressing of 2.0-2.5 kg urea per mu; when fertilizing, avoid letting urea directly contact the faba bean roots, keeping a distance of 3 cm as appropriate.
  2. Flowering stage management. During the flowering stage, strengthen the prevention and control of diseases and pests such as chocolate spot, bean weevil and aphids, and spray potassium dihydrogen phosphate on the leaves in 1-2 applications. During the flowering and podding stage of faba bean, arrange irrigation according to soil moisture conditions, so as to avoid a large number of flower and pod drop during the flowering and podding stage, and at the same time ensure full grain filling of faba bean and obtain as high a 100-grain weight as possible.
  3. Harvest at the right time. Harvest when the lower 3-4 layers of pods of 80% of the plants in the field have turned black and the upper pods are yellow-green. 


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