Method of growing Japanese loofah

Currently on the market there appears a kind of fruit that many people call Japanese gourd sold very well. Japanese gourd is actually a type of gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris Ser.) Long fruit, vines of Cucurbitaceae. It is like a melon fruit, imported from Japan and grown in our country many years ago so many people call it Japanese loofah.

Japanese gourd - a type of gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris Ser) (Photo: henriettesherbal)

In the northern mountainous provinces of Hoa Binh, Bac Kan, Yen Bai, Lang Son . sometimes people see selling along the road and called little chit fruit for about 6-7 thousand VND / kg. This kind of fruit is also seen growing in home gardens in the Red River Delta provinces to make vegetables and sell to restaurants and hotels to make special boiled dishes at a high price: 10-12 thousand VND / kg.

Some characteristics of this plant: Leaves, stems and hands that are like gourd but smooth, hairless. Use your hands to gently sprinkle leaves with a characteristic smell of gourd. Flowers are small, white, including male and female flowers. The green fruit alternates white stripes running along the trunk, from 15 to 20cm long, the largest spot diameter is about 3-3.5cm and the tip of the 2 ends, especially the tail. The intestine is as thick as a gourd, without a fibrous network like melon. When ripe, each fruit has several seeds of brown or black gourd. The fruit is used to make vegetables at a young age, small seeds, soft shells, high sugar ratio, sweet taste.

How to plant : We went to observe the Japanese melon gantry and exchange experience with this type of melon with Mr. Cao Viet Nhan in Cau Dien town, Tu Liem, Hanoi, he said: This variety is easy to grow and grow well and it's very wrong like our loofah varieties.

The best season for planting pots is from October to December and if you take good care of the plants, it will give you more fruits, less guts, higher productivity, harvest in April and May. However, scattered in some It is also found to grow many litters throughout the year to get vegetables. Like other cucurbitaceae plants, Japanese lettuce does not tolerate flooded soil, or too wet soil, prone to root rot and tree rot, so it should be planted in high and easily drained areas. Because this type of gourd has a lot of fruit and almost always produces fruits, it is recommended to apply more fertilizer, especially decomposed animal manure and occasionally apply potassium fertilizer. It is possible to sow 2-3 holes at the foot of each hole, until it is pruned, it will only retain 1 tree growing well or sowing seeds in the gourd bag before planting into the dug wells, pre-fertilizing fertilizer.

When planting, it is necessary to make trusses such as gourd rigs, melon trellises for climbing plants that will produce many fruits. According to the experience of many people, when the melon plant grows about 2-3m long, the scissors cut off all the ends of the rolled hands and rolled into small rings with a diameter of about 20cm, put down the dug wells next to the root and fill the ground thin up. The rest of the loofah tops is about 1 meter long to climb to the truss. After some time the roots in the burning parts of the ground buried began to grow, we added manure with the addition of nitrogen and potassium in order to provide enough nutrients needed to produce a lot of fruit and long time to produce fruits. .

How to breed : It is recommended to select the fruits from the first and second batch, the big ones, all to ripen until the gourd has just been collected. The best way to preserve seeds is to cut them to dry them, then put them in the kitchen to put them away, and after that, take seeds to sow.