How to build a trellis for growing cowpeas and how to prune cowpeas

Cowpea is the most common vegetable on the table. Although it is common, it also requires some skills to grow cowpea. Otherwise, the cowpea will not grow well and produce beans, and the hard work of that year will be wasted. If you want to improve the survival rate of cowpea and increase the yield, you have to learn some planting skills. Here is how to build a frame and prune cowpea. Let's take a look!

How to build a trellis for growing cowpeas

The most important task in cowpea cultivation is to build a trellis to guide the vines. Building a trellis to guide the vines can greatly increase the yield of cowpeas. When the cowpea seedlings are 20CM high, the trellis should be inserted to guide the vines. When building the trellis, an X-shaped trellis is used, which is conducive to the growth of two rows of cowpeas and convenient for harvesting. The ventilation and light transmission of the cowpea plants will be better.

The wind is strong in spring, so the bamboos used for the frame can be tied with thin ropes or wires. After the frame is built, wrap the vines in a counterclockwise direction to guide them.

When setting up the trellis, the small bamboo poles should be inserted 12 cm away from the base of the cowpea plant, one bamboo pole should be inserted into each hole, 15 cm deep, and the two trellises should be intersected. Horizontal bamboo poles should be placed on the intersecting trellises and tied tightly. The height of the trellis should be about 2 meters.

How to prune cowpea

During the seedling period, young leaf buds can be removed to promote the growth of flower buds. All side branches below the first inflorescence of the main vine should be pruned to concentrate nutrients on the main vine. During the pod-setting period of cowpea, old and diseased leaves at the bottom of the plant should be removed in time to further enhance ventilation and light transmission between plants and reduce nutrient waste.

When the main vine grows to about 200CM, it is necessary to pinch and cap the vine to inhibit vegetative growth and promote reproductive growth.

How to make ridges when planting cowpea

In the process of planting cowpea, it is necessary to make vegetable beds, the most common ones are flat beds or ridge beds. Relatively speaking, flat beds are more common and are simpler to make. In the case of a small planting area, it is generally made by manpower using a shovel. If it is a large-scale planting, there are special ridge-making machines to control the spacing. The flat bed method is still very good for large-scale irrigation in the later stage. Generally, the width of the flat bed can be between 1.2-1.5 meters, and the height of the ridge can be controlled at 10-15 centimeters, which can basically meet the water storage capacity for irrigation.

How to spray cowpea seedlings

The chemical method used in field planting of carob is mainly liquid medicine. There are different proportions of medicine for the above different diseases. The specific dosage is not introduced here. Generally, it is proportioned according to the actual situation. It is not very meaningful to talk about it here for practical application. Another method for chemical pests is fumigation, which is also used for the purpose of field planting pest control. Here we will simply introduce some common methods for dealing with diseases and pests, and we cannot involve the use of specific dosages, because there is no disease data at that time to support it, and we cannot measure the dosage.