How to grow stevia in a garden plot
The site for for the cultivation of the stevia must be chosen sunny and protected from wind.
The ground for landing should be specially prepared. It should be light, sandy or sandy loam, loose, with a weakly acid reaction of the medium. If your soil is heavy, clayey, it needs to be improved - add river sand, humus, turf. Peat mixtures should not be added - it will depress the development of the plant. Liming is also undesirable. From organic fertilizers in the autumn it is recommended to make humus or compost, and in the spring add mineral fertilizer( nitroammophos) at a rate of 10-20 g per 1 sq. Km.m. Before planting the site should be thoroughly digged, remove the rhizomes of perennial weeds, carefully level the surface of the soil.
Seeding for seedlings is performed in late March - early April. If you apply a lightening, then you can do it before. The land mixture for seeding is prepared from 2 parts of sand, 1 part of well-repelled humus with the addition of biohumus( 1% by volume).Seeds of stevia are rather small, they are sown, not buried, in a well-moistened substrate, covered with glass and put in a warm place. When the bulk of the seeds give seedlings, the glass is removed, and the box with the seedlings is transferred to the lightest part of the room. Sprouts must always be protected from drafts and ensure that the air temperature does not fall below 15 ° C.
When the shoots have pairs of real leaves, they are gently, together with a bundle of earth, transplanted into a larger box or into separate cups, deepening the first leaves. Soil mixture is prepared in the same way as for seeding, only instead of 1 part of sand add as much sod land. Seedlings should be watered regularly and once a week fed with a solution of complex mineral fertilizer. The period of the spacing in Stevia usually takes about 8-10 weeks.
Planting seedlings in the open ground is better when the threat of spring frost passes, and the daytime air temperature rises to 15-20 ° C.Experienced gardeners recommend doing it in the evening or in cloudy weather. Plant one plant per well to a depth of 6-8 cm. Planting is preferable to thickening, with a distance between the young plants of 25-30 cm, then they will be able to support and protect each other from rain and wind. Immediately after planting, water is irrigated with warm water( 0.5 liters per well) and the seedlings are planted with dry soil at 1/3 of the plant height.
It is better to keep young plants of stevia from weeds, otherwise they will not develop normally. We need timely weeding and shallow, but regular loosening. Watering is mandatory: stevia needs constantly moistened soil and does not tolerate drought, but stagnant water is also contraindicated. Top-dressing can be given once every 15 days.
From sowing seeds to harvesting sweet leaves, it usually takes 4-4.5 months. The largest mass of leaves in Stevia is at the beginning of flowering, and the stevioside at this time contains the most. Then it's worth starting to harvest valuable raw materials. This is very simple - you need to cut the stem of the plant at a height of 5-6 cm on the ground.
If you create optimal growth conditions for your sweet bunches, they will accumulate so much stevioside in their leaves that, in terms of our usual table sugar, will amount to 7 kg of sweetness per square meter of planting!
In its first growing season, stevia develops rather slowly, so it is advisable to grow it in a multi-year culture. This means that for the winter, the rhizome must be excavated and placed in the vault.
After shoots with leaves are collected, Stevia rhizomes together with a clod of earth are removed from the soil, placed in boxes or boxes. At the bottom of the boxes, the soil is poured into a layer of 3-5 cm, and then covered with damp earth so that only "scraps" of cut stems remain above the surface. In a storage room( dark
cellar or cellar) it is necessary to maintain a strictly defined temperature regime: not higher than + 8 ° C( otherwise the kidneys will move to growth) and not below + 4 ° C( in this case, the kidneys may freeze).The optimum humidity is 80-85%.You can use the bottom compartment of the refrigerator, glazed loggia or insulated balcony if you can maintain the desired temperature. After this "wintering" the rhizomes are planted in the open ground, and a new crop will not keep you waiting. The rate of development of plants will be much higher than when growing seedlings from seeds.