An unsurpassed honey plant, an excellent soil enricher with organic substances - all these are the properties of phacelia. The cultivation of this crop can be carried out more than once per season. Consider this and more.
Phacelia: Growing a crop is worth it
Bees love the nectar of phacelia flowers. To get the maximum amount of honey, it is necessary to sow the crop several times between April and June, or even before the onset of winter. The usual sowing rate for phacelia is about 0.8 g of seeds, provided that the distance between the beds is 45 cm, and about 1.1 g - at 20-25 cm: that is, in monoculture it is 10 -12 kg per 1 ha or half the norm along with other herbs. The honey obtained from phacelia is very tasty. Growing plants is a must for many beekeepers: it is also worth noting that this is good money. Phacelia is a honey plant that can produce honey from 150 to 250 kg per hectare of land.
Not only beekeepers are happy with this crop. Farmers and gardeners widely use already faded phacelia as green manure. They are able to enrich the soil so that you can forget about its fertilizer for 2-3 years. Phacelia is able to growon almost any soil, this means that unsuitable soil for sowing other crops can become fertile in just a year: after the plant has faded, you need to mow it and bury it shallowly in the ground. By the way, phacelia is also very useful for livestock.
There is another positive point: phacelia, which can be grown on any soil, protect it from nematode formations, wind and rain erosion.
Phacelia: growing from seeds
This crop can be planted anywhere - in apiaries, in vegetable gardens, in flower beds, in fields - everywhere it will be beneficial. Phacelia seeds are obtained in an easy way. This requires plants of the earliest crops. It is worth paying attention that the seeds crumble quickly, as their maturation is uneven. Therefore, it is necessary to cut only those inflorescences of plants that have brown seed coats. The lower part of the curls is cut off, where the most valuable seeds are located, then they are placed until fully ripe, then they are threshed and various impurities are removed. Seeds will be able to sprout even after three years.
As a piece of advice, we can say that if you need high-quality and fruitful seeds of this crop, you can turn to the beekeepers' society for help - they probably have more than one kilogram in stock. Caring for this crop consists only in the removal of weeds. And this should be given special attention. If weeding is not possible, then it remains only to mowweeds right on top of the phacelia. Growing the rest shouldn't be difficult. Plant the plant in moist soil. The most correct option is planting in beds with a distance of 40-65 cm, then the landing rate will be in the range of 5-6 kg per hectare. In order for phacelia to give a good harvest and honey production on soils in which the fertility rate is low, it is necessary to pay great attention to fertilizers. To do this, increase the norms of phosphorus and potassium, magnesium and boron. Here is such a useful plant - phacelia!
