Organic towel gourd planting key points, towel gourd planting avoid crops what is the yield?

The Chen Haowei Organic Farm, located in Dounan Town, Yunlin County, is a net room of about a quarter of the land. Walking into a bright farm filled with green vines, large and small towel gourds, and white butterflies flying between yellow flowers, is the experimental site for owners Chen Zhengfang and Chen Haowei and his son to adopt organic farming methods, including traditional rice tube towel gourd and a new type of apple towel gourd. Recently, they have also begun to plant jadeite balsam pear.

Dounan Town is an important producing area of towel gourd, Chen Haowei speculated, "it is the high content of magnesium and calcium in the soil, which gives towel gourd a unique flavor." "the Dounan area is mostly clay and has a high degree of water saturation. even if the towel gourd is relatively resistant to moisture, farmers still have to work hard on drainage and ventilation. Chen Haowei let towel gourd plant row and row deliberately wide interval, to prevent the soil near the root system from being compacted and losing air permeability due to walking back and forth. He raised the planting position, left the plant about 50 to 60 centimeters above the ground to strengthen drainage, drilled holes in the protruding surface, inserted bamboo pipes, and discharged soil moisture using the principle of a chimney.

Bamboo pipe drainage

Two generations of young farmers back home carry a hoe to do organic work.

Chen Haowei was a young farmer returning to his hometown in 1985. his grandparents used to grow rice in this field. Many years ago, her father Chen Zhengfang retired from his job as a police officer and returned to Dounan to take care of his sick parents and began to grow pumpkins and other crops as an interest. Chen Haowei worked for a health food company at that time, and every week he returned to his hometown to accompany his elders and went to the fields with his father. His grandparents, who were distressed by illness, also experienced a black-hearted oil incident that shocked society, which made him face up to the fact that people's health was closely related to the source of food. and the importance of organic agriculture.

There were originally differences between father and son on whether to devote themselves to organic farming, but on the one hand, they wanted to support his son's career, and on the other hand, considering the impact of the agricultural environment on his body, Chen Zhengfang decided to become Chen Haowei's teammate and work together for the transformation. Since 2012, Chen Haowei has gradually embarked on the road of organic farming by participating in Farmers' College courses and 100 major youth farmers' tutoring programs.

Doing organic is more complicated than doing experiments, constantly trying to find the most suitable method.

Walking into this net room at the end of spring, the sensory experience is very rich. There are strips of green towel gourd hanging on the rattan frame, and some young fruits are still connected with yellow flowers, which are very beautiful under the blue sky. Pairs of white butterflies danced lightly on the grass, the noise of the big white goose, the hum of the flapping wings of some insects, and the faint smell of peppermint floating in the air. Because Chen Haowei's intention to maintain the natural food chain cycle has led to the emergence of parasitic fungi that can inhibit insect pests in the vibrant farmland.

In the net room, busy bees between vines are pollinators, ducks are put in the fields to eat snails and other pests, and two fierce white geese, like watchdogs, eat weeds. Weeding is mainly manual, while planting ──, a special vegetation that can control weeds and reduce pests, is an intriguing source of mint flavor, including peppermint and heart-leaf mint. The repellent plant, which can kill two birds with one stone and adapt to the environment, has been confirmed after many attempts. Chen Haowei, who graduated from the institute, sighed that doing organic is much more complicated than doing experiments: "there is no SOP in organic agriculture!" You just have to keep trying to find a way that suits a particular environment. "

Avoid crops

His belief in the right place is also reflected in the fact that he has chosen a self-grown towel gourd that stores local climate information, rather than a commercial species that has a relatively uniform appearance but may not adapt to a specific environment and requires medication and fertilization. In order to maintain the variety, in principle, the flowers should be wrapped immediately after manual pollination. Organic cultivation also allows towel gourd to ripen slowly and fully, making the taste more solid and dense, the white melon flesh is not black for a long time, and the soup is sweet. "it tastes very similar to the towel gourd my grandmother planted in the backyard when I was a child, which touched me. "

In order to keep the towel gourd varieties planted in the right place, Chen Haowei wrapped the flowers immediately after artificial pollination. Loofah net indoor ecology is rich, in addition to white butterflies flying, there are big white geese to help eat weeds.

The yield of organic cultivation is low, and the impact of extreme weather is even greater. So far, there is no economic benefit from agriculture, but Chen Haowei did not give up. He thanked his parents for their support and his wife's patience. He also mentioned the brothers and sisters of Li Jen and Fuye for their support and companionship from agricultural techniques and channels to spiritual support and companionship. sometimes he was worried about the poor appearance of loofah, but someone told him at the store, "I can't even get your apple towel gourd!" The encouragement of consumers gave him a shot in the arm.

In Chen Haowei Organic Farm, there are the traditional rice tube towel gourd and the short round new variety ── apple towel gourd. Chen Haowei also suggested that in summer towel gourd had better be wrapped in newspaper in the vegetable drawer stored in the refrigerator to avoid shredding too quickly. Farmers grow vegetables with peace of mind and hope that consumers will taste them while they are fresh.