Fire dragon fruit ecological planting! Put soil improvement first!

Author: Longguo planting Union

Strict selection of planting varieties

There are two varieties of dragon fruit selected in the garden, one is crystal introduced from South China Agricultural University, and the other is fragrant honey dragon introduced from Taiwan. although among the many red meat dragon fruit varieties, they belong to low and medium yield and require artificial cross-pollination. Farmer Chen Sheng still chose this variety.

At the end of June, the dragon fruit to be ripe.

Ripe dragon fruit, crystal clear and full flesh.

Why do you choose to plant these two varieties because of the low yield and the high cost of labor? It has its own unique advantages: thin skin, tender meat, sweet and non-greasy, and has a strong fragrance.

Establish one's own ecological technology system

This year is the fourth year of ecological cultivation of dragon fruit. Neither farmer Chen Sheng nor his wife Xiao Tian comes from an agricultural background and does not have much professional background, but they are very dedicated and hard-working, Chen said. Almost all their spare time is spent reading all kinds of books on ecological agriculture!

After more than three years of practice, the plain agricultural garden has built its own complete ecological technology system: through growing grass in the orchard to preserve soil and water and improve the farm ecological environment; through cake fertilizer to supplement nitrogen fertilizer, bone powder to supplement phosphate fertilizer, plant ash to supplement potassium fertilizer; soak water with plant ash to control diseases and net bags to control insect pests.

Combination of planting and breeding

The farm raises black goats and ducks. Black goats can eat grass, greatly reducing the cost of manual weeding; ducks can eat snails to reduce the harm of snails to dragon fruit. Their faeces decompose naturally in the soil and provide nutrients for the soil.

Attach importance to biodiversity

Planting passion fruit in dragon fruit, planting pink banana and green jujube, sporadically planting some pineapple, Luoshenhua, guava, Jiabao fruit, pear tree, Moringa, etc., to practice the possibility of planting different crops, but also increased biodiversity, and provided more abundant food for families.

Put soil improvement in the first place

Mushroom dregs compost.

A pond in which peanut bran is fermented.

In the straw mulching experiment, the soil was obviously more loose and breathable than that covered only with raw grass.

Rice husk mulching experiment, the soil color is darker, the effect of improving the soil is better, and there are strong earthworms.

The way to improve the soil in plain agricultural garden is to retain grass, increase biodiversity and conserve soil and water. If the grass exceeds 40cm, the grass will be mowed, and the cover will be returned to the soil. Second, the feces of goats and ducks increase organic matter. Third, the application of mushroom residue, traditional Chinese medicine residue and other compost and peanut bran, plant ash, bone powder and so on. Fourth, keep experimenting with better ways to improve soil, bark composting, mushroom residue composting, straw mulching, husk mulching and so on, actively looking for better ways.

Physical pest control

Snails and fruit flies are relatively harmful to dragon fruit. Ducks are responsible for snails. Fruit flies use transparent, breathable and reusable net bags to solve the problem during dragon fruit ripening. There are also ants and ground tigers, but the ecological environment is good, they do not cause large-scale harm, so there is no control.

A bottle of paraquat herbicide on the ground in a nearby orchard.

Sick dragon fruit, almost no result, no harvest.

In contrast, we walked to a conventionally planted fire dragon orchard nearby and found that it had been abandoned. In 2016, the whole region was hit by acid rain, and most of the conventionally planted dragon fruits failed, while the plain fire dragon orchard, which adopted the ecological planting method, was very little affected, showing the advantages of excellent ecological cultivation.