Foxtail Millet Cultivation Techniques and Field Management Methods
Foxtail millet, formerly named: millet, also called liang, green foxtail, yellow millet, millet grain; Latin name: Setaria italica (L.) Beauv. var. germanica (Mill.) Schrad. Poaceae, Setaria genus annual herb, with thick and large fibrous roots and sturdy culms; millet is the result after hulling foxtail millet, foxtail millet is a cereal plant, a kind of grass, millet has high nutritional value, contains rich protein, fat and vitamins; it is not only for consumption, but as medicine it has the effects of clearing heat, quenching thirst, nourishing yin, tonifying the spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines, promoting urination, and treating watery diarrhea, and can also be used to brew wine. Its stems and leaves are also excellent feed for livestock; they contain 5-7% crude protein, exceeding the content of ordinary forage grass by 1.5-2 times, and are low in cellulose with a relatively soft texture, and are favored by mules and horses; its grain chaff is also good feed for pigs and chickens.
Foxtail millet cultivation techniques:
1. Land preparation and fertilization, crop rotation and stubble reversal, deep plowing of the soil, improving soil structure, enhancing water retention capacity, deepening the plow layer, which helps foxtail millet roots penetrate downward, making the plants grow robustly and thereby increasing yield. Apply sufficient base fertilizer, generally based mainly on phosphate fertilizer plus farmyard manure.
2. Seed treatment, select excellent disease-resistant varieties, carry out seed treatment before sowing, choose sunny days to dry the seeds in time, and dress the seeds with Xin Gao Zhi Mo (can be mixed with seed coating agents), which can repel underground pests and diseases, isolate viral infection, without affecting the germination and imbibition function, strengthen respiration intensity, and improve the seed germination rate and seedling emergence rate.
3. Replanting and thinning, generally when foxtail millet has 2-3 leaves after emergence, check the seedlings and replant; when it has 5-6 leaves, carry out thinning and final singling, and spray Xin Gao Zhi Mo at the appropriate time, which can effectively prevent aboveground water from evaporating and seedling water from transpiring, isolate pests and diseases, and enable the seedlings to grow healthily.
4. Field management, promoting seedlings to be strong, intertillage and weeding, timely watering, reasonable topdressing, and timely spraying of Cu Hua Wang No. 3 to promote flower bud differentiation and improve pollen fertilization quality; spraying Zhuang Sui Ling before flowering can strengthen the physiological functions of foxtail millet, improve fertilization and grain-filling quality, increase the thousand-grain weight, increase the fruit-setting rate, make the grains plump, and achieve increased yield.
5. Pest and disease control, during the growth stage foxtail millet is prone to smut, red spider mites and other pests and diseases; according to plant protection requirements, timely spray targeted agents for elimination and control, and spraying Xin Gao Zhi Mo 800-fold solution can greatly improve the utilization rate of the effective components of pesticides.
