Spinach has extremely high nutritional value, and it has a short growth cycle with high market demand, leading to an increasingly widespread cultivation area in China. Spinach is typically propagated using seeds, so what are the planting techniques for spinach seeds? Let's find out together.
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Seed Collection: Spinach is dioecious, with male plants flowering and wilting early. The remaining female plants produce seeds clustered together along the veins of the leaves. About eighty percent of spinach turns yellow. After wilting, cut the stems from the base, sun-dry for a week, follow up with maturation, fully wilt, then beat with a stick, remove debris, and store after thorough drying.
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Seed Selection: For production, select large, healthy, plump seeds. These seeds germinate quickly, grow rapidly, mature early, and are high-yielding. Variety selection depends on local planting conditions and market factors.
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Pre-planting Preparation:
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Land Preparation: Choose fields where cruciferous vegetables have not been planted in the previous crop rotation or other large-field crops for spinach cultivation. Apply decomposed manure as base fertilizer, supplemented with 30 kilograms of nitrogen and potassium fertilizer. Then shallow till to create beds about 1.3 meters wide for sowing.
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Seed Treatment: This involves seed soaking for germination. Soak the seeds in water for 12 hours, then refrigerate for 24 hours. Place them in an environment with a temperature of 20-25 degrees Celsius for germination, which typically takes 3-5 days.
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Planting Time: Spinach can be planted year-round, depending on specific circumstances. Typically, spring spinach is sown in March, summer spinach from May to July, autumn spinach in August to September, and winter spinach from October to November.
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Planting Methods: Methods include broadcasting and row planting. Broadcasting involves evenly spreading seeds on the soil surface, lightly raking, and covering with a thin layer of nutrient soil. Row planting involves digging a trench, sowing seeds along the trench, then covering with soil. It's generally recommended to use row planting to facilitate seed management.
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Planting Density: Typically, 3-3.5 kilograms of seeds are required per mu (about 667 square meters) of land. Planting rows should be spaced 15-18 centimeters apart, with plant spacing of 6-8 centimeters, resulting in approximately 20,000 plants per mu. It's essential to control planting density, avoiding overcrowding or excessive seed sowing, which can hinder root development and increase seedling mortality.
Overall, the planting techniques for spinach seeds are relatively straightforward, with an emphasis on proper preparation, especially scientific seed treatment before planting, to address issues like slow germination and low germination rates.
