Alternative echinacea growth schemes (Echinacea purpurea Moench.)

Abstract

The search for raw materials from aromatic and medicinal plants has been very variable over the years, so it is of utmost importance to research the possibilities for recovery of seedlings when it is impossible to sell it on the market. For this reason, the Echinacea seedlings were left for three years on the beds, with the second year part of it being divided and three types of parcels were formed - without thinning and thinning (removal of the plants across the bed 25 cm wide) in 35 cm and 70 cm for different options. Reducing the area of a plant under 0.175 m2, as is the case with the traditional growing scheme with a row spacing of 70 cm and a 25 cm inside the rows, bring to a depopulation of the plant. This was most clearly observed on the above ground mass in the seedbed, where it decreased in the third year from 3.8 to 6.8 times in the different variants against the control. In the nursery beds, even the plants of the middle parts of the bed have 3.43 times less leafy mass and form 1.29 times lighter roots than the end plants. At a compacted crop of 35 to 90% of the plants do not form stalks and generative organs in individual variants. The yield of fresh roots obtained in the autumn of the third year of compacted crops marks a reverse trend. In the variant of the sorting of the nurseries in 35 cm, the highest values of 4171 g/m2 were recorded, which is 12 to 26% more than the other variants and 59% more than the control grown under the traditional scheme. Echinacea allows to grow under compacted crops and produce significantly larger roots per unit area, but without performing a thinning in the plant, too many small plants are formed, making it difficult to collect and deteriorate the quality of the raw material.