Balance fertilization on platycodon grandiflorum and isatis indigotica fort for high yield and quality
English
IPNI-2001-CHN-AH13
22 May 2002
Justification
The production of Chinese traditional medicine herbs is become more and more important for local economic development in Anhui province, and also in many regions all over China. Taihe county is located in the northwest part of Anhui province and is one of the most important medicine producing base in China. At present, there are over 6,600 hectares of Platycodon grandiflorum (PG) cultivated in this county and export PG over 20,000 tons annually. The planting area of Isatis indigotica Fort (IIF) is also greatly extended in these years.
PG is a wild and popular Chinese medicine plant. Recently, along with the increase of PG consumption, it has been wide cultivated by farmers. IIF is a crucifer plant and is a popular Chinese medicine plant as well. It has clear effect on detoxify and used for prevention diseases. In recent years, the market of PG and IIF is good. Farmers obtained 30,000 Yuan/ha (USD3,660/ha) to 75,000 Yuan/ha (USD9,150/ha) from PG planting. They become two of the most important cash crops for local farmers in the area.
Recently, the problems of PG and IIF planting are unbalanced fertilization (usually no K and micronutrient application), the yields and quality decreased, diseases and pests affected seriously. These problems greatly reduced the economic efficiency of Chinese medicine herbs planting.