How to get large roots and vegetables

A special impression is always made by huge root crops and vegetables, which give very high yields of raw mass. The question arises: how to get large roots and vegetables in your garden?

The question arises: how to get large roots and vegetables in your garden?

Meanwhile, such large root crops and vegetables are not so difficult to grow under the appropriate conditions and plant care. If you take a soil that is well prepared and fertilized with manure and mineral fertilizers, provide it with water, then a wide-row planting of plants will give a very noticeable result.

Take the seeds of a large-fruited root vegetable, for example, a turnip, and sow on a well-prepared bed with wide row spacing, about 50 cm. As soon as they sprout, break the seedlings in the rows at the same distance. For comparison, sow another ridge with row spacing of 25-30 centimeters and break the seedlings in rows at the same distance. Over time, you will get a crop of roots in both areas, differing in size depending on the distance between the plants.

True, you may end up with the total yield of large roots being less than the yield of small ones. So, placing plants in our experiment at a distance of 50x50 centimeters instead of 20x25, we reduced the number of plants by 5 times, which means that the yield of large plants can exceed the yield of small ones only when they grow 5 times larger than small ones. Therefore, in order to obtain a large harvest, the arrangement of plants should be done, adhering to a certain average value developed by practice.

There are other ways to get large roots and vegetables.

If you sow seeds in exactly the same conditions, then they will always yield plants of different development and growth and a different harvest. This means that the seeds do not contain the same ability of plants to grow, and if we select seeds or seedlings according to their ability to grow, we would get an increased yield from such seeds.

One of the forces that affect the power of plant growth is the well-known osmotic pressure of the cell sap of the plant, that is, the force that makes water penetrate into the root and which depends on the strength of the solution of its cell sap. If a seed is immersed in a solution of the same strength as its cell sap, then water will not flow into it and the seed will not be able to germinate. Only those seeds germinate in which the strength of the cell sap is higher than the strength of the solution.

If seeds are germinated not in water, but in some harmless solution, for example, sugar of such a strength that would correspond to the average strength of the cell juice of a given plant, then only those seeds will germinate with an osmotic pressure above this average value. By selecting these seeds, we thereby select the strongest plants, which give the highest yield.

For those plants that are bred with seedlings, first of all, you need to know the average osmotic pressure of the plants and be able to prepare an appropriate sugar solution.

The osmotic pressure of each plant varies within a fairly wide range. In all cultivated plants, it fluctuates around a pressure of 20 atmospheres. The sugar solution corresponding to this osmotic pressure will be about 20 percent (by dissolving 200 grams of sugar in 1 liter of water).

The seeds should be laid out in floating lattices, which are placed on a sugar solution, poured into a plate or bowl, covering it with another plate. To avoid the appearance of mold and other microorganisms, ordinary formalin is added to the sugar solution - 10 drops per liter.

Sprouted seeds must be removed, rinsed thoroughly with water and planted in a box with soil to obtain seedlings. In the future, the usual care for this plant is applied.

The most tested plants for these experiments are tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, kohlrabi, rutabaga, turnip.

In addition to obtaining large root crops and vegetables in the same way, varieties with increased osmotic pressure associated with early maturation, drought resistance and other useful properties of plants can be developed.

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