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Almost every summer resident grows radish in his household plot in order to have a very useful and tasty root vegetable in stocks in the winter, saving him from severe colds. However, there are also varieties that are not capable of forming fruits, but are valuable for their branchy foliage and buds. These varieties of seeds are sown to produce green crop fertilizers.
The characteristic qualities of oil radish
The oil-bearing radish( Raphanus sativus. Var. Oleiformis) is famous for its special fertilizer properties. This plant class cruciferous, annual. This crop does not form a root crop, like a common radish, but goes deep into the soil cover with a developed strong root system, due to which a large number of leaves form on the surface.
Oilseed radish reaches a height of two meters. Her foliage can be used as food, especially often housewives prepare salads from tender leaves.
But overgrown stems are an excellent fertilizer for the soil, the so-called green manure.
This culture is not whimsical to growing conditions. She is not afraid of drought, cold or excessively wet conditions. It is not necessary to plant radish in well-lit sunny places, it will give excellent harvest in shaded areas.
The vegetative development time from planting to the appearance of the first inflorescences is forty days, and this makes it possible to grow radish several times in a favorable spring-summer-autumn season.
The later the radish is sown in the soil, the more the seeds are consumed, their germination decreases. There are about thirty grams of seeds per ten square meters.
Sowing seed by dispersing over a certain area of seeds and planting it with a usual light rake to a depth of about two centimeters for excellent germination.
The effect of using oilseed radish
- Sowing oilseed radish is mainly associated with the desire to improve the soil structure in garden beds and make it more nutritious for all necessary nutrients and organic elements.
- A well-developed radish root system helps to raise the most useful minerals into the upper layers of the soil, which are so necessary for vegetable crops that are grown at home in ordinary garden plots.
- After the shoots reach their maximum height and ottsvetutsya, they are mown, and the plot with the roots dug up the usual manual method using a garden spade. From the green, not coarsened stalks, prepare the green crushed weight which digs into the soil. If the stalks have stood and coarsened, then compost is prepared from them.
- Olive radish very effectively fills the land, does not allow the weeds to break through, due to which nothing grows on the beds except vegetables and radish. Radish today is an excellent method of weed control in large agricultural areas and fields.
When is it best to use oil radish as a fertilizer?
This crop is most often grown on loamy soils, peat bogs, weakly acidic areas, vineyards, which contributes to the destruction of malignant pathogens in the soil, wireworm and fungal diseases for three to six years, loosening the enriched soil, draining it, and accelerating the growth of other shootscrops, causing improved air and moisture capacity.
Radish is used as a siderata to enrich the soil with a deficient amount of nitrogen, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, and also in areas that are too contaminated by weeds, especially those covered with grass. Another important property of oilseed radish is the ability to protect the soil from water and wind erosion, especially during the autumn and spring periods.
