Of the 14 types of magnolia vine in the countries of the former USSR, only Chinese magnolia vine is common, which grows in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, on the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Prefers valley and mountain sparse coniferous-broad-leaved forests, sparse areas formed as a result of logging, fires and windbreaks. The most favorable are gentle slopes of low mountains. Rarely found in shady forests.

What nutrients are found in lemongrass fruits?

The fruits are rich in biologically active substances. Dry fruits contain sugars - up to 16%, organic acids (citric, malic, succinic, tartaric, etc.) - 10, tannins - 3, pectins - 0.15% and dyes; in freshly harvested: sugar - 2%, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) - 70 mg%, as well as citrine (vitamin P), sterols and carotenoids, essential oil, etc. The seeds contain fatty oil - 47%, essential oil - 3 %. The fatty oil of the seeds contains tocopherol (vitamin E) - 30 mg%. Juice and seeds contain many macro- and microelements, especially silver and molybdenum. The active ingredients of lemongrass are schisandrin, schisandron and several other compounds of a rather complex composition (contained in seeds).

perfect-supplements

What is the dietary and therapeutic value of lemongrass fruits?

You can use fresh and dried fruits, as well as tinctures from seeds and fruits, powder from seeds. In the Far East, lemongrass fruits have long been used as a tonic, as well as for the treatment of many diseases: colds, frostbite, sexual impotence, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal disorders, etc. Schisandra fruits and preparations have a stimulating effect on the central nervous system, stimulate cardiovascular activity and respiration, increase efficiency, relieve fatigue during physical and mental stress, drowsiness, exhaustion of the nervous system, neurasthenia, depressive states, etc. Contribute to an increase in blood pressure, sharpening of night vision. Contraindicated in hypertension, epilepsy, gastric ulcer and gastritis. Susceptibility to lemongrass is not the same, so you should use it in consultation with your doctor.

What else can be used besides fruits and seeds?

Lemongrass stems, leaves, roots and bark can be used as a flavoring, stimulating and tonic agent. All of them contain biologically active substances. In addition, there is five times more ascorbic acid in leaves than in fruits. The leaves and bark exude a lemon scent, especially when rubbed in the hand. From whole organs or powder from them, it is recommended to make tea, decoctions, tinctures, which have a pleasant color, delicate aroma and have a tonic and thirst-quenching effect.

How to use lemongrass fruits?

Basically, the fruits are processed for use in therapeutic and prophylactic purposes. In this case, crushing and crushing the seeds should be avoided, since as a result, the products acquire a bitter, burning taste. Dry fruits are widely used in cooking. The fruits keep well.

What are the biological features of lemongrass?

This is a woody vine up to 18 m long, 2.5 cm in diameter. It supports itself in an upright position, leaning on other plants and supports. Shoots wrap around supports in a spiral. The bark is dark brown, smooth and shiny on young shoots, scaly on old shoots. Creepers and their shoots are elastic, soft, do not break when bent, always directed upwards. Kidneys - elongated-ovoid, sharp, 3-4 mm long, collected three in a knot. The middle, most developed kidney begins to grow, the two lateral ones remain dormant. The leaves are light green, alternate with a wedge-shaped base, the petioles are pink. Flowers - unisexual, 1.5 cm in diameter, waxy, white, on long drooping pedicels, two to four on short shoots. They have a subtle scent. Male flowers have white stamens, fused so that only the anthers remain free, opening with a longitudinal slit. In females, the pistil is greenish with numerous carpels located on a cylindrical receptacle. Male flowers bloom two to three days earlier than female flowers. They do not lose their petals after flowering, but fall off along with the pedicel. Female - lose petals as fertilization and at the beginning of ovary development.

How is the qualitative composition of female and male flowers formed on monoecious plants?

Young lemongrass plants entering the fruiting period form predominantly male flowers, female flowers as they grow. In an adult lemongrass, the flowers are arranged in tiers: in the lower part - mostly male, in the middle - male and female from one mixed bud, in the upper - female. The presence of flowers of one sex or another is not a stable sign, it depends on age and environmental factors such as light, nutritional conditions, temperature and soil moisture. Flower buds are laid on the shoots of previous years. Lemongrass blooms in June for 8-12 days.

Tatters

What are the features of the formation and development of fruits?

After fertilization, the ovary gradually increases and lengthens, a brush is pulled out from one flower - an elongated receptacle with a pedicel and fruits. The latter are green at first, then they increase in size, turn white, turn brown and more and more “separate”. By the time of maturation, the brush increases by 25-50 times. The fruits become carmine red. The fruit is a juicy multileaf, cylindrical polyberry with an elongated receptacle (8-10 cm), on which there are about 40 spherical leaflets (fruits) with a diameter of 5-10 mm. The average weight of the fruit is 0.45 g, the hands are 1.37-14.67 g. Ripe fruits do not fall off, but hang until frost.

Are there schisandra plants dioecious (separately female and male)?

Yes. This biological feature is fixed in the offspring only during vegetative reproduction. With seed, as a rule, three types of plants are obtained: male, female and monoecious. The first two annually confirm their dioeciousness: either female or male. Monoecious plants have an unstable ratio of female and male flowers, in one year there may be both, in the next - most or all female. This phenomenon does not contribute to the annual guaranteed harvest if only monoecious plants are planted on the site. Therefore, along with monoecious plants, dioecious plants should also be planted.

Why sometimes lemongrass blooms every year, but there is no harvest?

It is possible that only female or only male plants grow on the site, and the female fruits are not tied because there are no male plants nearby. Lemongrass flowers are pollinated by insects.

What are the requirements of lemongrass for growing conditions in a garden plot?

Under natural conditions, lemongrass is demanding on light, high atmospheric humidity and soil fertility. When breeding on the site, it must be placed in an open place (it grows slowly in shading and bears little fruit). The soil should be fertile, well-drained, with a light texture. Responds well to organic and mineral fertilizers, watering. On dense clay, peaty or sandy soil, the growth and development of magnolia vine slow down - such soil should be improved. Schizandra does not grow in wetlands, does not withstand flooding by flood waters.

Are there varieties of lemongrass?

There are no varieties yet. There are selected forms and samples that are distinguished by productivity, elongation and compactness of the brush, large fruits, good content of sugars, vitamins and other biologically active substances.

What are lemongrass seeds?

The seeds are shiny, yellow, kidney-shaped, with a thin dense shell (the surface of the latter is finely furrowed), 4x3x2 mm in size. Each fruit contains one or two seeds. The average weight of 1000 seeds is 20 g. Lemongrass has an extremely developed "empty grain", sometimes reaching up to 95%. Hollow grain seeds are devoid of germ and endosperm, although outwardly they are no different from normal ones. In normal seeds, the embryo grows and develops during stratification.

What is the yield of seeds?

The yield of seeds is 6-8% of the yield of fresh fruits. In 1 kg of pure seeds, there are 40-50 thousand seeds. Germination lasts no more than two years.

Can lemongrass be propagated from seeds?

It is possible, but due to the splitting of signs and properties, an exact copy of the mother plant cannot be obtained.

How to prepare seeds in the post-harvest period?

From freshly picked fruits, it is necessary to squeeze the juice, rub them lightly through a sieve, rinse and separate from the pulp and skin. Dried seeds should be stored in paper bags until January, then proceed to stratification.

How to properly stratify seeds?

In January, lemongrass seeds should be soaked for 4 days and the water changed daily. After that, wrap them in a nylon cloth and place them in moist, calcined coarse-grained sand in a box, and keep them in a room at a temperature of 18-20 ° C for 1 month. Periodically (once a week) the seeds need to do air and water baths. To do this, they must be dug up, washed, allowed to dry for 15-20 minutes, wrapped again in a cloth and put in the sand. A month later, a box with seeds should be placed under the snow, and 20-25 days before sowing, pull it out and put it in a warm room with a positive temperature so that the sand thaws and the seeds peck.

Kordyukov Alexander

How to sow stratified seeds?

Well-prepared fertile soil since autumn should be loosened and marked in spring, grooves should be made 1.5–2 cm deep at a distance of 12–15 cm from each other, and the bed should be compacted. Sow the seeds in the grooves after 2 cm from each other, cover with humus with a layer of 1.5 cm and water. In the same grooves, simultaneously with the sowing of lemongrass seeds, sow the seeds of a lighthouse culture, which is characterized by a rapid seed germination. Shoots of lighthouse culture designate the rows of lemongrass crops, which will prevent them from being damaged during care.

Is it possible to sow lemongrass seeds in the fall?

Yes. Freshly isolated seeds 3-4 days before sowing must be moistened with water, which should be changed daily. Then it is necessary to prepare the ridges, make shallow grooves, compact the bed, sow the seeds and cover them with a light humus layer of 1.5 cm. Seeds sown in autumn undergo natural stratification in the soil, shoots appear in early summer next year.

How to care for crops, shoots and seedlings?

Crops should be in partial shade. If the ridges are located in an open area, they need to be covered with lattice shields or gauze. In summer, you should loosen the soil, weed weeds, and, if necessary, moisten with water. Seeds germinate non-simultaneously, the process lasts 2-2.5 months. First, the hypocotyl knee appears in the form of a loop, it gradually straightens and takes out the cotyledon leaves with the seed coat. After being released from the shell, the cotyledons straighten out, increasing in size. If the seeds are sown often and gave good seedlings, then with the advent of the third true leaf, they can be picked out. In the first year, seedlings grow very slowly (by autumn, the height is 5-6 cm). In the second and especially the third year, they develop faster, with good care by autumn they grow by 0.5 m. At the place of sowing, seedlings must be grown for two to three years, then transplanted to a permanent place.

How else can lemongrass be propagated?

All methods of vegetative root reproduction.

Woody cuttings.

The shoots harvested in autumn should be cut into cuttings 20 cm in size, tied in bunches and placed under the snow. In the spring, the cuttings (to a height of three quarters) must be placed in water (change it daily). After three days, lignified cuttings should be planted in loose fertile soil (to a depth of three-quarters of the cutting). Planting care consists in loosening the soil, weeding, watering. Water daily for a month, at the end of which adventitious roots form. At the same time, watering should be reduced: first, carry them out every other day, then once a week. At the rooting site, the cuttings should be grown for two years.

Root suckers.

Around fruit-bearing plants, especially old ones, many root offspring are formed. Carefully at a considerable distance from the plant with a shovel, you need to cut off the rhizome with an adnexal shoot. If there are several shoots, then the rhizome must be cut with a pruner according to the number of shoots. Root offspring often do not have their own roots, so they should be planted for growing (for one to two years) or for a permanent place (in the latter case, more thorough care and watering is necessary). All root offspring cannot be dug up: the root system is destroyed and the mother plant dies.

Root cuttings.

The rhizome must be carefully dug up, cut off with a shovel from the mother plant and removed from the soil. With a secateurs, you need to cut it into cuttings so that each has adventitious buds or etiolated shoots that have started to grow. Rhizome cuttings must be grown in loose, fertile soil and watered daily.

flowerfolkherbs

Green cuttings.

This breeding method can be used in June and July. Fresh shoots should be cut into three-node cuttings in the shade, remove the leaf with the petiole from the lower node. During the day, the cuttings must be treated with stimulating substances (heteroauxin, indolylbutyric acid, etc.). For rooting, cuttings should be planted in a sterile substrate of greenhouses or greenhouses at high humidity. Cuttings take root faster and better where the temperature of the substrate is at least half a degree higher than the air temperature. This is easily achieved with biological heating (decaying manure or organic debris). Excessive watering contributes to the soaking of the roots or poor overwintering of rooted cuttings.

Is it possible to propagate lemongrass indoors?

Yes. A pot should be placed in a well-lit place, two-thirds of it should be filled with fertile structural soil, and on top (one-third) with coarse-grained sterile sand. Plant a green cutting in the last one (the technique for preparing the cutting is described in the previous answer). The aerial part of the cutting should be covered with a film or glass jar. You need to water often, but in small doses, while not removing the shelter. Water should be at room temperature, it is better to keep it on the windowsill. After two or three weeks, roots will appear on the cutting, during this period you can remove the jar (film) at night, constantly increasing the time the cutting is without shelter. Four and a half weeks after planting, the shelter must be removed completely. Watering at this time must be reduced, since the roots can suffocate and rot from excess water. Overwintering rooted cuttings are better tolerated in open ground.

Where is it better to plant lemongrass on the site?

The right choice of a place for planting is of great importance, since not only the productivity of magnolia vine, but also the decorative design of the garden largely depends on this. The place should be open to the sun, but protected from cold and withering winds. It is good to place lemongrass on the south side of the buildings, but it is possible on the east or west side (so that the sun illuminates the plants for half a day). The best soil is loose, rich in humus, drained, with a reaction close to neutral. Therefore, the area intended for planting lemongrass must be thoroughly prepared and deeply cultivated. Heavy, dense, clay soil should be patched up with sand and organic fertilizers, peaty and sandy with clay and organic fertilizers, acidic with lime. Areas with a high level of groundwater must be raised or planted with lemongrass on ramparts or other elevations.

How to properly prepare a seat?

One plant can be planted in a hole, but lemongrass alone is not recommended. It is better to plant several plants in a trench 50 cm wide and no more than 60 cm deep. In the middle of it, at a distance of 1.5 m from each other, metal stakes must be driven in to attach the trellis. At the bottom, you need to lay drainage material (cog, gravel, slag, broken brick, construction debris) with a layer of 30 cm and slightly compact, then fertilized soil. The latter should be prepared in advance: add (per 1 m 2) to the dug-out cultivated layer: rotted manure (60-70 kg), sand (three to four buckets), lime (500 g,) phosphorus (150 g a.i.), nitrogen (40-50 g a.i.). The soil with fertilizers must be thoroughly mixed and compacted in a trench. At each seat (after 1 m), you need to pour a cone-shaped tubercle from fertile soil and slightly compact it.

How to plant lemongrass?

When planting, the strongest shoot of the seedling should be cut into three buds, from which the plant will form, weak shoots should be cut into a ring, the roots should be shortened by 20-25 cm. bucket). When planting, the seedling must be placed on a cone-shaped tubercle, spread the roots in all directions and sprinkled with soil. The last one should be slightly compacted, watered abundantly and mulched.

When is the best time to plant seedlings in a permanent place?

It is best to plant them immediately in a permanent place. If seedlings are purchased in the fall, then they should be planted at this time. Pigging for the winter worsens the survival rate during spring planting.

How to care for lemongrass?

In the first two years, the root system develops intensively. It is fibrous and is located at a depth of 8-10 cm. Therefore, it is undesirable to loosen the soil deeply, and mineral and organic fertilizers must be applied superficially in the form of mulch. In the third year, fairly good growth shoots are formed, which must be directed upwards and temporarily tied with twine. They themselves curl around the support. The soil should be weeded and the mulch loosened to a depth of 2-3 cm. Mineral fertilizers, starting from the third year of planting, should be applied in the form of three top dressings during the growing season. In the spring, before bud break, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium should be added (40 g of a.i. per 1 m 2), after flowering, during the period of active growth of the ovary, nitrogen (20 g), potassium and phosphorus (15 g each) , after harvesting in September - phosphorus and potassium (30 g of a.i. per 1 m 2). Fertilizers must be raked into the mulch and watered abundantly.

Tatters

In what form to cultivate lemongrass?

The form of cultivation of lemongrass affects not only the yield, but also the performance of the brushes. Of the two forms - bushy and vertical (on a trellis) - the latter is better. At the same time, the vines are well lit, and conditions are improved for pollination of flowers by insects. As a result, the length of the brush, the number of fruits and their weight increase. The average weight of one brush is 3.5 g, on a trellis - 9.8 g. In addition, with a vertical culture, the life expectancy of the plant increases, the vines develop better, it becomes easier to form a crown, more female flowers are formed.

What supports can be used for lemongrass?

The same as for actinidia.

Does lemongrass grow without support?

Yes. But it will bear fruit later and worse. To speed up the entry into the fruiting season, the vine must be lifted onto a support as soon as possible.

What year does lemongrass begin to bear fruit?

Vegetatively propagated plants - after three to four years, grown from seeds - after five to six years.

Do plants need to be trimmed and shaped?

With good care during the fruiting period, the vines branch intensively, which thickens the crown and reduces the yield. At the same time, a large number of root suckers are formed. Therefore, cutting and shaping vines is necessary. To reduce thickening in the crown, dried, weak and extra shoots should be cut out in late autumn (after leaf fall). It is possible to shorten too long growth of a given year. With a large thickening on the trellis, young growing shoots should be shortened in the summer as well (usually by 10-12 buds), and all root suckers should be cut out annually, old vines should be replaced with young ones. The cutting of old vines does not depend on age, but on the bareness and remoteness of their crowns from the ground.

What is the decorative effect of lemongrass?

It is a fast-growing vine with graceful and juicy green foliage, white, pleasantly smelling beautiful flowers in spring and bright red fruits in autumn. In summer, it creates a pleasant shade and coolness near arches, trellises, pergolas, arbors, trellises, etc. Deserves widespread use in garden plots.

How to collect lemongrass fruits?

You need to harvest when you reach full ripeness (for the middle lane - in September-October). Brushes must be plucked or cut off at the base. It is unacceptable to put fruits in metal dishes, as harmful compounds are formed during oxidation in the juice. With good care on fertile soil, 4 kg of fruits can be obtained from one plant, but most often - about 0.7-1 kg.

Are all biologically active substances preserved when growing lemongrass in the middle lane?

Yes, all biologically active substances are preserved when growing lemongrass in the middle lane

How to dry fruits?

Slightly dried fruits must be sorted out, impurities and stalks removed, spread in a thin layer and dried in the oven at a temperature not exceeding 60-70 ° C (otherwise they turn black). Dried fruits should be hard, coarsely wrinkled, irregular in shape, dark red or almost black, have a spicy, bitter-sour, slightly irritating taste and a slightly aromatic smell. Drying whole juicy fruits at room temperature is ineffective, as they become moldy.

How to dry leaves and young shoots?

The optimal time for harvesting leaves and young shoots is the beginning of August. They should be chopped with secateurs into pieces up to 2-3 cm, spread out in a thin layer and dried in the shade with natural ventilation, stirring regularly. Store in paper bags.

Baranchuk-Chervonny Lion

What can be prepared from lemongrass fruits at home?

The fruits are mainly used for drying. Lemongrass juice can be used to make kvass, syrups, jelly, jam, marmalade, etc. Processed products acquire a good color and have the aroma and taste of fresh lemon.

Are there diseases and pests on lemongrass?

exist in natural conditions. On lemongrass grown in the middle lane, they have not yet been seen.

Schisandra chinensis

Since Chinese magnolia vine is a very interesting berry and medicinal crop, and I have almost 51 years of experience in its practical successful cultivation in our conditions. To do this, I had to study in detail the main features of this plant, grow several hundred of its seedlings from seeds of various origins and bring several dozen of them to fruiting with the selection of the best of them. Observations of the growth of these seedlings made it possible to develop and propose a technology for successful cultivation for the conditions of the Middle Urals. In my opinion, the proposed technology or its individual parts are quite suitable for other regions with harsh climatic conditions.

Since the volume of accumulated materials about Schisandra chinensis during its cultivation turned out to be very significant, I decided to present it again in the form of a series of 5 articles:

1. Medicinal properties and features of use.

2. Biological features.

3. My experience.

4. Methods of reproduction.

5. Technology of cultivation.

Currently, Schisandra chinensis is very widely known among gardeners. Great interest in this plant is due to its medicinal properties. The glory of Schisandra chinensis could be the envy of many of its green counterparts. It has been known to the inhabitants of the Far East since ancient times. The consolidated Chinese pharmacopoeia, compiled in 1596, states: "Wu-wei-zi- the fruit of Chinese lemongrass - has five tastes, classified as the first category of medicinal substances. The pulp of wu-wei-zi is sour and sweet, the seeds are bitter-astringent, and in general the taste of the fruit is salty. Thus, all five tastes are present in it ... ". Indigenous Far East- Russians, Nanais, Udeges- it is well known that lemongrass eliminates fatigue, restores strength, and invigorates. Going hunting and hiking in the taiga, they often take with them dried fruits or seeds of magnolia vine, and instead of tea, they brew its leaves or pieces of liana at halts. "The Golds (the old name of the Nanais - author's note) see them as a reinforcing agent and in winter they take schizandra berries (the Latin name for lemongrass) for hunting, like the Indians of Chile or Peru- cola leaves,- wrote in 1903 academician V. L. Komarov.

CHINESE LEMONGRASS: BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE AND TONIC SUBSTANCES

The great popularity of magnolia vine as a medicinal plant in ancient and modern oriental medicine prompted Soviet scientists to begin a more detailed study of magnolia vine and the possibility of its use as a medicine. As a result of many years of thorough chemical analyzes, a variety of very valuable components with various important nutritional and medicinal properties were found in the fruits and other parts of Schisandra chinensis.

Substances that cause a stimulating effect in the seeds of Chinese magnolia vine were identified for the first time by the Soviet scientist D. A. Balandin, who named one of the substances contained schisandrin (a derivative term from the Latin name of magnolia vine). Later, other substances that cause a stimulating effect received their names. For example, one of them was called schizandron. Numerous animal and human studies have proven the stimulating, stimulating and tonic effects of lemongrass on the cardiovascular and nervous systems. Schisandrin, schisandrone and their derivatives are squiterpene carbohydrates and their ketones. In addition, water-soluble two- and three-basic free carboxylic hydroxy acids also have stimulating properties in lemongrass fruits.

According to the results of research by the Laboratory of Biologically Active Substances (BAS) of ULTA under the direction of L. I. Vigorov and Moscow biochemists, it was revealed that the largest amount of tonic substances is contained in Schisandra seeds- 250 mg/%. The content of these substances in the fruit pulp ranges from 6 to 10 mg /% (in terms of fresh weight), in leaves, stems and roots- 26-60 mg/%, in aqueous decoctions of dried leaves- 0.3 mg/%, in dried whole fruits- 1.1 mg/%. From the above data it is clear that tonic substances are contained in all parts of the plant. Moreover, it is most expedient to harvest seeds, fruits, leaves for medicinal purposes. Leaves can be collected from non-bearing plants (in small quantities) throughout the growing season. At the end of it, you can collect all the autumn leaf litter, it contains up to 45 mg /% of the active substance.

Lemongrass fruits contain sugars, organic acids, vitamins, microelements, etc. Belarusian biochemists and the BAV ULTA laboratory found that fruit juice with pulp contains 12% dry matter, up to 10% organic acids, 0.15% pectins, up to 2 % sugars, up to 20-25 mg /% vitamin C, 100 mg /% vitamin P, 0.02% vitamin E and a number of other compounds. Dry fruits contain up to 16% sugars, 30-70 mg /% vitamin C, up to 10% citric acid, up to 9% malic acid and up to 2% tartaric acid, bioflavonoids, carotenoids, pectin, essential oils and some other substances. In the seeds, the content of fatty oil reaches 46%, it contains up to 3 mg/% of vitamin E. The largest amount of vitamin C (130 mg/%) is concentrated in the leaves. Leaves, bark, fruit pulp also contain a large amount of essential oils.

The following microelements were found in the fruit ash: zinc, copper, manganese, nickel, titanium, molybdenum, silver, lead, and in the seed ash- 50-61% potassium oxide, 8-9% sodium oxide, 9% magnesium oxide, 10-11% calcium oxide, 10% sulfur trioxide, 1.8-2% iron oxide, 7-7.5% phosphoric anhydride, 2 .5% silica and 0.5% chlorides. It is interesting to note that molybdenum and silver were found in the fruits of lemongrass in an amount of 0.001-0.002% (while in the upper and lower layers of the soil under the plant these microelements are contained in a negligible concentration), which indicates the ability of the plant to accumulate these substances .

The consumption of lemongrass fruits and products of its processing, according to scientists, improves the general condition, physical and mental performance of a person, sleep, increases appetite, strengthens the nervous system, stimulates the cardiovascular system and respiration. Lemongrass is not a specific medicine, at the same time it increases their effect and has a beneficial effect on a person's well-being. Many believe that lemongrass preparations are close to ginseng in their action. The stimulating effect of magnolia vine on increasing the efficiency of mental workers, athletes, pilots and representatives of other professions has been established. The consumption of lemongrass preparations in all cases should be agreed with the doctor. It is contraindicated, for example, in hypertension, epilepsy and a number of other diseases. At present, Schisandra preparations have been introduced into scientific medicine and are still very widely used in folk medicine.

CHINESE LEMONGRASS: COLLECTION, PROCESSING AND USE OF FRUITS AND LEAVES

As mentioned above, lemongrass fruits, according to ancient Chinese books, have 5 flavors: sour, bitter, salty, caustic and sweet. For this reason, its fresh consumption is not a very pleasant procedure. In addition, fresh fruits can only be eaten for a limited period of time, only when they are ripe. They are mainly used in a processed form for therapeutic, prophylactic and other purposes. It should be noted that only fully ripened fruits are suitable for processing, which usually appear in our conditions from September 1 to 25. The fruits that have begun to turn red ripen well, being removed, and in room conditions. But fully ripened fruits are stored in room conditions for a very short time and quickly become moldy. It is unacceptable to collect fruits in metal dishes, because. the released juice causes oxidation of the metal and the appearance of various harmful, and often toxic chemical compounds. For this reason, it is also unacceptable to use metal juicers, juicers, sieves with a metal mesh, etc. when processing fruits. During processing, crushing of seeds should also be avoided, because. they give a bitter taste. Use the simplest processing methods: it can be fresh fruits in sugar, dried fruits, canned juice (syrup), compote.

When sugaring fresh berries, it is necessary to use twice as much sugar as berries, and when making juice- one and a half times (the juice should be squeezed out through several layers of gauze into an enamel bowl). Compote syrup is prepared from sugar and water in a ratio of 1: 1. It is advisable to store these processed products in glass jars with a volume of 0.5-1.0 liters in a cool place and in no case close them with iron lids.

Drying- the easiest and most effective way to preserve lemongrass fruits. Lightly dried fruits should be dried in an oven in an electric or gas stove or in a conventional oven at a temperature of 60 ° C for 3-4 days. Dried, they have a dark red color and large "wrinkles". It should be warned that at a temperature of 70 ° C, lemongrass fruits turn black, and when dried in a room- covered with mold (due to the high content of juice). Fresh fruits in sugar, canned juice, compote can be stored for more than a year, dried fruits - for several years. Schisandra seeds dried at room temperature are very convenient for long-term storage for medicinal purposes. Leaves and broken shoots for medicinal purposes can also be dried and stored for a long time. They are crushed, laid out in a thin layer (under a canopy with natural ventilation) and mixed repeatedly.

Fruit processing products and fresh fruits in sugar can be used as a seasoning for tea, for the preparation of confectionery and culinary products and tonic drinks - fruit drinks, kvass, etc. Dried fruits are used for the preparation of confectionery and culinary products, soft drinks, jelly, which have a weak tonic effect, and for medicinal purposes. Dried leaves are also suitable for making tonic drinks and tea (10 g of leaves are brewed in 1 liter of boiling water). Lemongrass tea is considered one of the best natural substitutes, it has the aroma and taste of lemon, invigorates and refreshes.

All products made from lemongrass at home increase efficiency, relieve fatigue during strong physical and mental stress, defeat drowsiness, depressive states. For example, medicine has established that taking 25-50 g of raw pulp with skin or 0.5-1.0 g of seed powder is sufficient to restore a person's daily energy consumption. The indigenous population of the Far East successfully uses all parts of lemongrass to treat colds, frostbite, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal diseases, and in many other cases. Of course, I spoke very briefly about the therapeutic use of preparations from fruits and other parts of lemongrass, because. this was not the subject of this article. For those who are interested in this issue, I can later tell about it in more detail or give a list of relevant literature.

Lemongrass: botanical features

Schisandra chinensis belongs to the genus Schisundra, which belongs to the magnolia family (Magnoliaceae). Modern scientists count 7 species of magnolia vine in the genus, others double this number, and still others even triple and describe 25 species of magnolia vine, mostly of East Asian origin. The genus Lemongrass was first discovered in North America in 1803 by French-born scientist Andrew Michaud. To this genus, he attributed the only North American species of magnolia vine. Chinese lemongrass (Schisundra chinensis) was first described by the Russian botanist N.S. Turchaninov in 1867. Schisandra chinensis has several folk names - lemon tree, red grapes, cocelta (Nanai), state bank (Udege), omiza (Korean), gomishi (Japanese), wu-wei-tzu (Chinese).

As a natural wild species, Schisandra chinensis is found only in the Far East. Here it grows in Northeast China, on the Korean Peninsula and in Japan, and within Russia - in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories and in the Sakhalin and Amur Regions - from the southern state border with the DPRK to the north to Lake Kizi, the middle reaches of the Borin River, the lower reaches of the Zeya and further west somewhat north of Blagoveshchensk; on Sakhalin it goes north to the latitude of Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinskiy; also grows on the Kuril Islands (Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup). It grows in cedar-broad-leaved and other mixed coniferous-deciduous forests, less often in mixed deciduous forests, mainly in narrow valleys of small mountain rivers and streams, in clearings and forest edges, in old clearings and burnt areas. In the floodplains of rivers with prolonged flooding and prolonged waterlogging of the soil is not found. It rises to the mountains up to 600, rarely up to 800-1000 m above sea level. It grows in groups, often forming large thickets.

Schizandra chinensis plant is a woody vine. In its structure and especially in its fruits, the liana of Chinese magnolia vine differs from the liana of actinidia and Amur grapes. It is much thinner - does not exceed 2 cm - and in the presence of a support has a spiral structure. Wrapping around the support plant, lemongrass liana from the first years of life prevents the support from thickening, which often leads to its death. The support for it is mainly plants of the lower or middle tier. In the middle part of our territory and to the northeast along the Amur, the natural distribution of lemongrass is found mainly along the banks of mountain rivers, where it finds the best lighting. The height of the vines in the taiga reaches 12 m, in the northern regions - no more than 3-5 m. At the northernmost border of distribution, lemongrass, due to frequent freezing, acquires a bushy and even creeping shape. Here it grows in a community with lingonberries, wild rosemary, rhododendron, Dahurian larch and other northern plants. In these conditions, its winter protection is the snow cover.

A characteristic feature of the vine is its strength, even when twisted, it does not break. The color of the perennial part of the vine is dense brown, the bark is flaky, on two to three-year-old shoots it is yellowish-brown with numerous lenticels. The annual shoot is light brown, thin, flexible, with a twisting thin end. In contact with the support, the thin flexible end twists around the support in a spiral manner and continues to grow. Without support, the shoots are straight. Fruitful shoots are formed on two-year-old branches, they are of various lengths. The buds are of medium size or small, they are well formed, pointed, dark brown, bear the rudiments of shoots and leaves.

The leaf is large or medium in size, rounded-elliptical or ovate, broadened towards the apex and wedge-shaped towards the petiole. The leaf blade is slightly corrugated or smooth with grooves along the veins. On the upper side, the leaf is densely green, on the lower side it is whitish with a slight cobwebby pubescence. The petiole is short, reddish, passes into the main vein, which has a light green color. The venation is pinnate. Leaves are almost entire. Lemongrass foliage is strong, well preserved until autumn, the leaves do not fall off even in dry weather. Flowers of medium size on long pedicels, grouped in two or three, rarely four. The sepals occupy a covering position and do not differ in color from the petals. There are five petals, they are adjacent directly to the ovary, reddish at the base, this differs from the sepals.

Flowers are unisexual. In female flowers, the ovules are collected together on a long stem, each individually ending in a small protrusion - a pistil (Fig. 1). Female flowers do not have stamens, male flowers bear up to 10 stamens, fused at the bottom, without an ovary (Fig. 2). By these signs, female flowers are easy to distinguish from male ones. Flowering occurs in mid-June. Pollination is carried out by insects, which are attracted by the abundance of fragrant flowers. Mechanical contact of pollen from male to female flowers or movement of pollen by air currents is also not excluded.

Lemongrass fruits are multiberry, collected in a bunch grown from one flower (Fig. 3). Clusters have a different shape - from cylindrical to rounded. The average weight of a bunch of ordinary forms of lemongrass ranges from 3 to 15 g, on average - 5-7 g. The arrangement of berries in a bunch resembles grapes. The petiole of the cluster is long, up to 5 cm, reddish-greenish. The crest is twice as thick as the petiole, reddish-burgundy. The berries are small (about 0.2-0.7 g), irregularly rounded, there are up to 20 or more berries in a bunch. The color of the berries is dark red, shiny. The pulp is juicy, the juice is light pink. The taste of the juice is sour, with a characteristic lemon aroma. The skin is dense, bitter-sour. In the berry one, less often - two seeds of a characteristic reniform shape, yellowish-brown color. The seeds are well separated from the pulp. The mass of 1000 seeds averages 17-20 g.

The fruits of lemongrass ripen in September, the reddening of the berries and the browning of the seeds begin in mid-August. The taste of ripe fruits is sour, with bitterness and a sharp lemon aroma, the taste of seeds is sour-bitter, spicy. Professor A.P. Nechaev defined the taste of berries as bitter-sour-sweet-tart-salty, which is closer to the Chinese definition of “fruit of five tastes”. The brushes are kept on vines until winter and look spectacular against the background of snow and winter taiga without leaves. The harvest of lemongrass in natural conditions is irregular. Many note good harvests in a year. According to N. V. Usenko, the average yield of wild thickets varies from 50 to 1500 kg per hectare, from one liana - up to 2.5 kg. According to Z. I. Gutnikova, the fruit yield of underdeveloped vines in the taiga is 0.2 kg, medium-developed - up to 1 kg and highly developed - up to 3 kg, only on some of the most powerful vines it reaches 8 kg.

Lemongrass: structural features and requirements for growing conditions

The structure of lemongrass plants has certain features. Its roots under natural conditions develop, as a rule, in the surface layer of the soil and go far beyond the crown. On highly fertile soils, the root system is highly branched, with a rich lobe, on thin, heavy loamy soils, skeletal cord-like roots with weak branching and a lobe predominate. In seedlings, the primordial root from the embryo first grows vertically, but quickly loses its leading position and by the third year of the seedling acquires a horizontal position closer to the surface and forms numerous branches.

Aerial roots form near the root collar. They can be attributed to the organs of additional nutrition and reproduction of the plant. On thin, weakly fertile soils with an unstable water regime, aerial roots, in contact with the ground, give a lobe and thereby increase the power of the root system, and therefore provide additional nutrition for the vine. In favorable growing conditions, the vegetative mass of the aerial part of the vine grows rapidly, and aerial roots turn into additional shoots. Due to offspring, aerial roots and rooting of vines, reproduction mainly occurs and peculiar clones of lemongrass are formed, connected by a common root system and numerous vines. Often such clones from one mother plant of magnolia vine spread over a large area, and the number of vines on all clone plants can reach 100 or more vines. From one seed plant, under favorable conditions, in 3-4 years a large group of vines is formed, entangling a support, or a creeping thicket if there is no support.

One of the distinguishing features of lemongrass is the ability to produce numerous shoots from dormant buds located at the root neck, in the underground part of the stem - from adventitious roots in the event of the death of the main stem. Thanks to this property, lemongrass survives among herbaceous and shrubby vegetation. Grass does not grow under shading with lemongrass leaves. This property allows magnolia vine to quickly recover in the event of the death of the main stem from mechanical damage, frost, and warming. Lack of support during the growth of lemongrass is very undesirable, as it leads to a strong delay in the growth of the main stem of the vine and the beginning of its fruiting, and after the onset of fruiting, to very low yields of berries.

Lemongrass belongs to light-loving plants, but at a young age it is able to endure long-term shading. With the entry into mass fruiting, it definitely needs light. Lemongrass is demanding on atmospheric and soil moisture. In taiga conditions, optimal moisture is provided by the plant community and abundant leafy soil litter. In particularly dry years, magnolia vine, even in taiga conditions, shows partial wilting, and often drying out of magnolia vines on the southern slopes with a thin root layer. Lemongrass does not tolerate flooding and prolonged waterlogging of the soil during the monsoon rains. On islands and in flooded river valleys, it does not occur naturally. On heavy heavily waterlogged soils, if there is no removal of excess water, it stops growing, the leaves turn yellow prematurely and fall off. Under natural conditions, the most vigorous fruit-bearing thickets of lemongrass are confined to ravines, slope foothills, river banks, and slopes of hills, where well-drained fertile soils predominate. Lemongrass makes high demands on soil fertility.

Lemongrass: features of fruiting

Fruitful shoots of lemongrass are formed on two-year-old wood. They grow in various lengths - from very short (1-5 cm) to long (70 cm or more). On the shoots of fruiting, complex buds are formed in the form of nodes every 2-5 cm, they are located more often at the base, less often towards the middle and end, this is due to the growth conditions that develop during the growing season. In the year of fruiting, a shoot begins to grow from the bud, on which, at the very base, more often four flowers grow close together on very long and thin pedicels. Flowers can only be functionally female or male. According to the observations of A. A. Titlyanov, female flowers predominate on long fruitful shoots, and male flowers on short ones. Most scientists agree that lemongrass in the natural environment is a monoecious bisexual plant, individuals with purely male flowers are less common and very rarely with female ones. Female flowers are easy to distinguish from male ones. They carry a multi-berry ovary in the form of a glomerulus, which can be dissected into individual ovules. Their number approximately corresponds to the number of berries in a bunch or exceeds it.

Pollination of lemongrass is carried out by beetles with an incompletely opened flower. If pollination and fertilization have occurred, then the ovary-glomerulus gradually increases in size. Not all ovules can be fertilized, but only part of them; in this case, not the whole bunch develops, but only a certain number of berries. Usually such cases of the formation of an incomplete bunch, as in the case of bunches of grapes, are called bunch peas. In my practice, one form of lemongrass was identified, in which peas in all clusters were observed annually and were genetically incorporated. When picking berries in autumn, a wide variety of bunches with different numbers of berries are found. Unfertilized flowers remain for some time after the petals fall, but then gradually turn yellow at the base of the pedicel and fall off. The pedicels dry up and remain on the shoots until autumn. Male flowers do not bear ovaries, they are larger than female ones, with colored anthers and bloom earlier. At the end of flowering, the male flowers, together with the pedicel, fall off completely. The floor of the creeper is determined by the structure of the flower, as well as by fruiting.

LEMONGRASS: FEATURES OF VEGETATION

Just like actinidia and grapes, lemongrass goes through six phenological phases during the growing season, after which it goes into a dormant state. A sign of the awakening of lemongrass creepers is the beginning of sap flow (first phase), which occurs in the third decade of April or the first decade of May. Schisandra sap flow is not accompanied by "weeping", as is the case with actinidia and grapes. The spreading of the scales, and then the appearance of a green cone (the second phase - the beginning of the blooming of shoots), depending on the course of spring, falls on May 5-15. During the bud-breaking phase, the temperature often drops, in the Far East, in the places of natural growth of magnolia vine, even freezing to 11 ° C and below. In this case, the kidneys may undergo freezing, but at a higher temperature they tolerate cold snap and snow without damage to themselves. The growth of plants subjected to freezing of the buds is resumed due to the buds that did not start growing. This helps to maintain the viability of lemongrass. In case of frost damage.

The third phenophase covers the period from the appearance of the first buds to the end of flowering. With the beginning of the growth of shoots, fully formed buds on long pedicels appear at their very base. At first they are very small, but after 5-10 days they increase in size, petals appear and buds open. This phase begins in the first decade of June, in cold rainy weather. In the northern regions, flowering occurs 10-15 days later. The flowering phase, depending on the amount of heat, lasts 10-15 days. During the flowering period of lemongrass, it often rains, high air humidity is established, which worsens the conditions for pollination and fertilization of flowers. Due to unstable weather, the flowers open unfriendly - on the same shoots there are flowers in the bud phase, opened with fallen petals. The predominance of rainy and cool weather during the flowering period in some years is one of the reasons for the formation of defective seedlings and a decrease in yield.

Lowering the temperature to zero levels during the growth of shoots and flowering (at the end of May- early June) can cause complete death of growing shoots and flowers. Shoots at the same time completely wither, blacken and dry out. In this case, only the awakening of dormant buds and the subsequent growth of shoots from them can prevent the complete death of the plant in this case, at a much later time than normal. As a rule, this occurs in older plants. Among saplings and seedlings of lemongrass at the age of 2 years, late spring frosts during the growth of shoots cause their mass death.

The fourth and fifth phenophases cover the period from the beginning of the formation of berries to the full ripening of the fruits. At the end of June- At the beginning of July, it is already clear how successful the pollination and fertilization of flowers was. During this period, the ovaries begin to noticeably increase in size: on some infructescences, a full brush is formed, on others- only a few or one berry. The complete formation of seedlings occurs in the first half of August. Fruits on very long stalks look spectacular against the background of emerald green dense foliage. The berries are pale green at first, then yellowish, but on the sunny side they already acquire a blurry and dotted pink blush. The flesh also turns pink, its taste is almost the same as in the mature state. The seeds become yellowish, separated from the pulp, the shell is hard, the kernel is bitter. The size and appearance of the seeds are the same as those of fully ripened fruits. The period of ripening of fruits continues until mid-September, outwardly this is manifested in a change in color, texture of the pulp and ripening of seeds. By the period of full maturity, the fruits acquire a dark red or red-burgundy color, and the seeds- yellowish.

The formation of fruits is accompanied by an increased growth of shoots, leaves and buds. Some shoots reach 50-70 cm and continue to grow, others, having reached a small length (5-10 cm), complete growth. The shoots and buds of lemongrass are characterized by a change in color as they grow. By mid-August, they take on a brown color. Only slightly twisted growing tops of the shoots remain greenish, which sway freely in search of support. The ability of lemongrass shoots to quickly lignify at the very beginning of growth contributes to their good maturation and hardening by the end of the growing season, which ultimately determines their high winter hardiness. Lemongrass fruits are recommended to be removed after they acquire a red color. They ripen well in bed until full ripeness, for this, the clusters are laid out in one layer.

Sixth, ending phenophase- end of vegetation- prepared in the process of the previous one. Already in September, shoots and buds along their entire length acquire a deep brown color and dense wood. Lemongrass leaves in all phases of the growing season have a healthy appearance and are firmly held on the plant. A slight yellowing of the leaves is observed in mid-September, and they completely fall off after frost.

The duration of the period of active vegetation of lemongrass - from the beginning of leaf blooming to the physiological ripeness of berries, depending on the growing area, is 100-140 days. General growing season- from the beginning of sap flow to full leaf fall- 150-180 days. Lemongrass, like other East Asian species of fruit and berry plants, according to Academician G.T. Kazmin, apparently does not have a deep organic dormancy characteristic of European species. Its vegetation is forced to break off with the onset of cold weather, but it can resume as early as the beginning of winter if any part of it is placed in the appropriate temperature conditions. This circumstance must be borne in mind when transferring lemongrass to a culture in the European part of Russia, in the Urals, in Western Siberia, where there is a sharp change in temperature from high positive to negative.

Schisandra chinensis: growing experience

For the first time I learned about Chinese magnolia vine and its unusual properties by reading an article by Academician V. L. Komarov about Far Eastern vegetation in one of the issues of the journal Nature in the late 40s of the last century. A little later at the same time, my acquaintance with this plant continued when reading the books of V.K. Arsenyev "In the wilds of the Ussuri region" and "Dersu Uzala". Well, further acquaintance with Chinese magnolia vine has already been undertaken more purposefully with all available literary sources, including books, magazines and newspapers. By the beginning of 1951, I already knew quite a lot about this plant in medical terms, but I had almost no data on its agricultural technology. However, I have a very strong desire to start growing magnolia vine in my garden. From the literature, I learned the address of the Mountain-taiga station of the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where artificial cultivation of lemongrass was carried out and where methods for its propagation and culture were developed. I contacted this station and with great difficulty received from it in the spring of 1951 seeds for sowing and a very short and complicated instruction on preparing seeds for sowing, sowing them and growing seedlings. A total of 50 seeds were obtained. It was already too late to do the complex preparation of seeds for sowing, so all the seeds were sown without any preparation. Only 4 seeds gave seedlings, of which 3 seedlings were subsequently grown. Thus began my epic with the cultivation of lemongrass. According to the information I made at that time, practically no one grew Chinese magnolia vine in the Sverdlovsk Region. At least, I received such an answer in the Sverdlovsk city society of gardeners.

Subsequently, annually, until 1962, I purchased seeds, seedlings, offspring of Schisandra chinensis from different places of the Union. Seeds, seedlings and offspring were purchased both from state institutions and from amateur gardeners and experienced gardeners. Basically, all this was obtained by mail, but much was also brought in person. Addresses were used here in the cities of Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Artyom, Khabarovsk, Zeya, Moscow, Leningrad and in a number of smaller points in the Far East and Ukraine. In total, from the seeds, seedlings and offspring obtained in those years, I grew several hundred adult plants, of which more than 50 were brought to fruition. Adult plants brought to fruiting were grown compactly, 3-5 in one planting hole. The experience of growing fruit-bearing plants obtained from sowing seeds, planting acquired seedlings and offspring has shown that not all of these plants produce good yields of fruits of the required quality. Most of the seedlings that began to bear fruit had low and some had very low yields. One plant turned out to have purely male flowers and did not bear fruit at all. Therefore, as the seedlings entered fruiting and their fruiting for several years, a very strict selection had to be made, as a result of which by 1970 only 7 plants were selected and left for cultivation, and all the rest were removed from the garden.

In 1972, the backyard plot with the garden was demolished. The offspring from all 7 selected plants were transferred to the gardens of friends and relatives, where by the time I created a new garden, only one plant had survived. The rest of the plants died due to inept care for them. The surviving plant was grown at one time from a seedling obtained in the fall of 1956 from the Primorsky Territory from the Innokentievsk state farm. Thus, the epic with the cultivation of Schisandra chinensis in the new garden had to be started, in fact, anew. First of all, I again had to take care of acquiring seeds. To this end, various points of seed acquisition were considered.- again both research institutions and individual amateur and experimental gardeners. With great difficulty, it was possible to obtain seeds from selected Schisandra plants from the Far Eastern Experimental Station of VIR (Vladivostok), the Far Eastern Research Institute of Forestry (Khabarovsk) and the Central Republican Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kiev), as well as from a number of experimental gardeners in Moscow and Leningrad. In addition, an offspring was also acquired from a selected form of lemongrass, which grew in the Garden of Medicinal Crops. L. I. Vigorova in Sverdlovsk. The indicated selective form of lemongrass was obtained by a great lover of vines, an experienced gardener from Dnepropetrovsk Z. B. Dushinsky, who at one time sent her offspring to L. I. Vigorov.

From the seeds obtained, about 240 seedlings were grown up to 3 years of age. 44 seedlings were brought to fruiting. These seedlings, like the seedlings in the old garden, were grown compactly, 4-5 plants in one planting hole. By the mid-80s of the last century, among the seedlings bearing fruit, a selection was made for the early onset of fruiting, yield, size of the bunch and individual berries. A total of 8 plants were selected. These 8 plants, as well as forms from Z. B. Dushinsky and from the Innokentievsk state farm, were planted in a permanent place and now they represent very powerful lianas of 26-31 years of age. Of course, it would be more reasonable to get the selected plants themselves from scientific research institutions and from individual experimental gardeners, or rather, offspring or seedlings grown from green cuttings from these plants. But all my attempts at that time to do so were unsuccessful. Therefore, it was necessary to grow a large number of seedlings from seeds and make a selection among them.

Schisandra chinensis is a highly winter-hardy plant that fully fits into the climatic conditions of the Sverdlovsk region. Initially, I grew all lemongrass plants in an open form without removing them from their support for the winter. Until the winter of 1966-1967, all seedlings and adult vines wintered very well, and the plants that began to bloom bore fruit well. But after this winter, many lemongrass plants experienced freezing and death of the ends of annual shoots, and, most likely, freezing of fruit buds, since the harvest of berries in the 1967 season was very meager. On some plants there were no berries at all or there were single, severely deformed clusters of berries. This made me think about how to grow lemongrass in our country in order to get a good harvest every year.

Back in the mid-50s of the last century, while corresponding with the director of the Station of Young Naturalists from the city of Zeya, Amur Region, V.P. Epov, I learned from him that at the northernmost limit of its growth in extreme conditions in the valley of the Zeya River, lemongrass grows in the form bush or in slate form, wrapping around the trunks and branches of dead trees and shrubs lying on the banks of the river. And the conditions there are really very extreme.- winter temperatures drop to -56°C, very short growing season. True, there is never a thaw in winter. And after this winter, I decided to grow 3 lemongrass plants without removing them from the support, and grow the rest in a semi-slatted form with removal from the support for the winter and shelter with snow. This experiment made it possible to verify the benefits of the semi-slat culture already a year after the end of the most severe winter of 1968-1969 of the 20th century. Since, according to many scientists, Chinese magnolia vine has a very short period of organic dormancy, in winters with long thaws it quickly leaves its dormant state and freezes after the onset of frost. And the winter of 1968-1969 began with a thaw at the end of November, followed by very strong and prolonged frosts in December, January and February. Lemongrass plants left on supports after this winter had severely frozen one-year-old shoots, even perennial wood froze, there were attacks of individual vines, fruit buds completely froze. Removed from the supports in autumn and covered with snow for the winter, lemongrass plants overwintered superbly and gave a good harvest. Since then, I began to grow all lemongrass plants only in semi-slatted form using a special removable support.

From the moment I started growing lemongrass in my garden, I tried in every possible way to satisfy its requirements for growing conditions. First of all, I studied the ecology of lemongrass growth in the places of its natural growth. Then I tried to study the experience accumulated by that time in its artificial cultivation. Correspondence with A. A. Titlyanov, a researcher at the Mountain Taiga Station of the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, gave a lot here. Based on the information I received, I started growing lemongrass in fertile, well-drained soil, in conditions of good soil moisture and good sunlight throughout the day. I had to try out different ways of caring for the soil, taking into account the introduction of fertilizers and fertilizing dressings into it. At the same time, it turned out that due to the very shallow, superficial location of the root system for magnolia vine, any deep tillage is contraindicated, and any fertilizer application is permissible either superficially or in wells punched with scrap. Lemongrass plants turned out to be very demanding on air humidity. In prolonged dry and hot weather, the foliage and green parts of the shoots of the vines began to wilt very noticeably, and in order to restore turgor in them, the plants had to be sprayed with sprinkling from a hose.

A lot of time had to be spent on creating a removable support and a method for forming the crown of lemongrass plants. As you know, starting from the 3rd year of growth of a magnolia vine plant, it is required to put it on a support and fix it on it. Plants that are not bred on a support grow in the form of a bush, begin to bear fruit very late, giving miserable yields. As a support, I tried different materials. Ultimately, I settled on a copper stranded wire with individual steel cores in PVC insulation, serving for many decades. Such a wire does not stretch from the gravity of the vines and wind load and has the necessary rigidity. Since PVC insulation is highly slippery, the vines that wrap around such a support can constantly slide down, breaking the crown of the plant. To prevent this from happening, knots are made on the wire every 0.5 m into which metal or plastic pins are inserted. The lower end of the wire is fixed rigidly at the base of the plant, and the upper end, with the help of hooks and loops made of a single-core steel wire with a diameter of 2 mm, is detachably attached to a longitudinal pipe of a U-shaped pipe structure placed above magnolia vine plants. Removing the support with such a design takes very little time and shows the advantages of such a removable support.

It is known that when artificially growing lemongrass in the garden, the length of its vines can reach 5 m or more. However, for an amateur gardener, plants with such a length of vines are not very acceptable, since it is not clear: how to make supports of such a height, and most importantly- how to serve them? Therefore, the height of the support, which mainly determines the length of the vine, is made reasonable in terms of its construction, maintenance, and high productivity of the vine. Although the highest productivity of the vine is observed at its greatest length, since the largest number of overgrowing branches is formed on it every year, In my opinion, for an amateur gardener, a support height of 3-4 m is appropriate, which was used in my garden. With a lower support height, the length of the vine, and consequently, the number of annual branches growing on it, decreases, which reduces the productivity of the vine. But to create a highly productive whole Schizandra plant, creating only one highly productive vine is not enough. It is required to bring several vines to one support, formed from new shoots growing from the base of the plant in the region of the root neck or offspring forming near the plant. For even greater productivity of the whole lemongrass plant, its crown should be created from several removable supports, forming crowns of several vines on each support. The magnolia vine crowns formed in this way have the largest number of overgrown branches annually and are the most productive.

I started to form crowns of this design in a new garden 31 years ago. At present, the size of the vines with all overgrowing branches on one support reaches about 1 m in diameter. The thickness of individual vines in the lower part of the support reaches the thickness of a human thumb, and the thickness of the entire bundle of vines- thickness of a human hand. With this crown formation, my lemongrass plants are planted at a distance of 1 m from each other. At present, the crowns of plants have been close to each other for a long time, and it would be better to grow them at a distance of 1.5 m plant from plant, since the plants lack sunlight.

Very important in the cultivation of lemongrass plants is the selection of plants that simultaneously bear male and female flowers on the same plant. Moreover, it is very desirable to select plants with an earlier appearance of female flowers on them, since usually male flowers appear first, and female flowers only after a few years. Among the seedlings of lemongrass in the 50s of the last century, I had one plant with only male flowers, which had to be discarded. It is necessary to pay attention to the greater simultaneity of flowering of male and female flowers on the same and different plants. Schisandra male flowers begin to bloom earlier than female ones, and if they are far ahead of the start of flowering, they may run out of pollen or lose their fertilizing properties. There are plants with defects in the female flower and with abortiveness and non-viability of the pollen of the male flower. Such plants grown from seedlings should be discarded. When selecting seedlings, I took into account the indicated qualities of flowering of lemongrass plants. Among the seedlings of lemongrass, already in my new garden, I had one plant that had some kind of defect in female flowers and for a number of years, with good flowering, never set a single fruit. Therefore, gardeners should grow a sufficient number of lemongrass seedlings in the garden so that among them there is a guaranteed pollination of plants blooming with female flowers.

When growing magnolia vine plants with removing them from their support for the winter and covering them with snow, when snow falls on thawed soil with a significant thickness, the bark can be observed to warm up in the region of the root collar, the bases of the vines and throughout the vines.

In fact, such warming can also occur in plants growing without removing the vines from the support for the winter. Therefore, it is necessary to artificially limit the thickness of snow in these places to 40-50 cm throughout the winter. Lemongrass plants are damaged by spring frosts when the air temperature drops below 0°C. In this case, leaves, green parts of shoots, flowers and ovaries are damaged. Weak spring frosts cause, without protection, the death of blooming flowers, ovaries and ends of shoots with young leaves.

Severe spring frosts kill completely unopened flowers, all ovaries and almost completely new green shoots with all leaves. The secondary growth of shoots from dormant buds on plants, lemongrass after that, begins with a lag from the first, often a month or more. Lemongrass spends a lot of plastic substances on their growth, but they ripen only by the end of the growing season, or in bad years they do not have time to ripen the ends of these shoots. Plants in this case do not winter well. They have a weakened laying of fruit buds.

To protect lemongrass plants from frost, I practiced the following measures:

1. Earlier rise of plants to the support immediately after the snow melted, which made it possible to slow down the beginning of their vegetation.

2. Since the magnitude of frost is greatest at the level of the soil surface, growing vines on a high trellis (support) 3-4 m high with the formation of the main mass of the crown with all green parts and flowers above 1-1.5 m in many cases saved plants lemongrass from frost.

3. Covering the plants with a film or non-woven material on a support or with removal from a support on the ground protected magnolia vine plants in most cases.

I would like to note a very interesting property of lemongrass thickets in my garden. From the second half of summer, for some reason, they attract large flocks of sparrows (50-100 units or more, old and young) for the night. In the evening, sparrows barely fit in several floors on a trellis and on the shoots and branches of lemongrass for the night. This began to be observed when Schizandra plants reached a height of 2-2.5 m (at about 5-8 years). The same was practically observed when growing lemongrass in an old garden.

The presence of large flocks of sparrows for 1.5-2 months or more annually contributes to the accumulation of a significant amount of bird droppings under the plants and, in general, eliminates the need to apply any additional fertilizer under them, perhaps with the exception of liquid top dressing. Thus, in my garden, lemongrass plants, as it were, fertilize themselves, attracting birds for this purpose. Why do lemongrass plants attract sparrows? I can't say anything. At least, in the literature about a similar property of lemongrass plants, to attract sparrows for the night, I have not seen any information.

Using the technology of growing lemongrass plants described above, in the vast majority of years I received high, and sometimes very high yields of berries. Often the yield from one plant reached 8 kg of berries in bunches. In 1988, my small article about obtaining such crops of berries was published in the journal Homesteading, and a huge stream of letters (about several hundred) poured into me. Amateur gardeners asked to talk about the technology for obtaining such a crop of lemongrass berries, and also asked to send seeds, offspring, seedlings. The responses to these letters caused such a waste of personal time that after that I vowed to write about anything in the central print media.

Schisandra chinensis: breeding methods

REPRODUCTION BY SEEDS

Schisandra chinensis, like many other fruit and berry plants, can successfully propagate in culture by sowing seeds. The collection and storage of lemongrass seeds intended for sowing differ from the generally accepted methods used for delivery to pharmacies, where there is no need to maintain their germination. It should be noted here that a characteristic feature of the seeds of lemongrass is the empty grain, in which seeds that are normal in appearance have an underdeveloped endosperm or are often without it. Under natural conditions, in wild plants of Schisandra chinensis, the void grain- a common, annual occurrence ranging from 10 to 90%. As a rule, among the seeds of wild magnolia vine, there are many seeds containing abnormal endosperm with a loose mealy consistency. Therefore, it is highly undesirable to use seeds obtained from its wild plants to propagate lemongrass by sowing seeds and obtaining seedlings from them. Fruits for harvesting seeds are harvested in full physiological ripeness, preferably from cultivated high-yielding healthy vines with well-executed seedlings (Fig. 1). They are spread in one layer, as they are quickly spoiled if they are poured in bulk. The seeds are separated from the pulp two to three days after picking the berries. Seeds from fermented fruits have a reduced germination capacity and are of little use for sowing, their shell and the upper part of the endosperm are colored pink. Freshly harvested viable seeds have a shiny light orange shell and a white, well-formed endosperm. When squeezed with fingers, healthy seeds are elastic, and empty ones- gently crushed.

The seeds are separated from the pulp by grinding and washing in water. In the process of separating the seeds from the pulp and repeatedly washing in water on a strainer, empty lightweight seeds float to the surface and are removed. Separated from the pulp, the seeds are spread in a thin layer and dried in a shady place in the air or indoors to a free-flowing state. Dried seeds are stored until autumn sowing or the beginning of winter stratification in boxes, plastic bags, paper bags in a cool, moderately humid room. Long-term experiments have shown that a small fraction of magnolia vine seeds has a very low germination rate due to the underdevelopment of the embryo and endosperm. Therefore, for autumn and spring sowing, it is recommended to select only the largest, morphologically complete seeds.

During autumn sowing, dried seeds prepared for sowing can be sown in sowing boxes or directly into the ground at the end of October. Seeds are planted to a depth of about 1 cm. The soil in boxes and on ridges is mulched. For seed boxes, the soil is prepared from a mixture of humus, sand and soddy soil in equal amounts. The boxes are put outside for the winter, and after the snow falls, they are covered with snow. Seedlings appear at the end of May, germination is about 30-40%. After very frosty winters, the seeds do not have time to fully stratify and their germination is greatly reduced. Some of the seeds left in the ground germinate in the second year.

Seeds intended for spring sowing or received by the gardener late, when autumn sowing is not possible, must be stratified. For this purpose, they are mixed with calcined and moistened river sand in the ratio of one part of seeds to two parts of sand. You can use moss as a substrate. Stratification is carried out in boxes, pots or other suitable utensils. From above, the dishes are covered with a lid or a metal mesh so that mice cannot get to the seeds, and put in a cellar or refrigerator with a temperature of 2-5 ° C. During the winter, stratifying seeds are periodically moistened as they dry. The period of post-harvest ripening of lemongrass seeds- 80-100 days. You can use the following method of storing lemongrass seeds for spring sowing. In early October, dishes with stratifying seeds are placed on the soil and covered with a layer of earth 30-40 cm, and on top with manure, sawdust or peat. In winter, they are additionally covered with snow. Under such a tire, very good conditions were created for post-harvest ripening of seeds.

However, the best method of stratification, which gives the highest percentage of germination of lemongrass seeds, is the method proposed by the Far Eastern scientist A. A. Titlyanov. As a result of a large number of experiments, he found that in almost all years, the embryos in the seeds of magnolia vine do not have time to fully ripen by the time the fruit is harvested. And, of course, such seeds with immature embryos give low germination. For the maturation of seed embryos and thereby increasing their germination, A. A. Titlyanov proposed to carry out stepwise stratification for them: to withstand a month at a temperature of 15-20 ° C (the time of ripening of the embryos) and another month at a temperature of 3-5 ° C (the time of direct stratification) . Thus, if sowing seeds in the ground or planting boxes for seedlings is expected in April, then the stratification of seeds should be started no later than the second half of January.

When purchasing a small amount of dry seeds before stratification, they are first sorted out, empty, small, damaged and rotten are removed, and then soaked in water for 3-5 days. Water is changed daily. During this time, the seeds absorb water from 50% of their mass and swell slightly. The best substrate for stratification of a small amount of seeds is moss, which prevents the development of mold fungi on seeds and retains moisture well. You can, of course, use washed and calcined coarse sand, which is less desirable. In a container intended for stratification of seeds (it can be a small box, flower pot, canned food jar), wet moss or sand is laid in a layer of 4-6 cm. The swollen seeds are placed in a damp nylon cloth and evenly laid on the substrate. From above, the seeds are covered with a layer of sand or moss. Within a month, the seeds are stratified in a room. Every 7-10 days they need to be ventilated, at the same time they make sure that the substrate does not dry out. After heat treatment, the seeds are placed in a home refrigerator in a place where the temperature is maintained at 3-5 ° C. A month later, the seeds are transferred to room conditions, where at a temperature of 12-15 ° C they usually begin to peck after 20-25 days. The bent seeds are sown in sowing boxes, nurseries. If there are few seeds, then they are sown in pots, peat cubes, bags with soil.

For sowing lemongrass, highly fertile soils well seasoned with organic fertilizers are chosen. The soil is cultivated to the full capacity of the root layer and is well cut to a finely lumpy state. When sowing across the ridge, grooves are arranged 2 cm deep at a distance of 30 cm from each other. The seeds are laid out in grooves at a distance of 4-5 cm. After sowing, the grooves are sprinkled with crushed humus, peat or earth. The soil must be well moistened.

When sowing, strongly nipped seeds are dived separately and measures are taken to protect them from frost and direct sunlight.

Shoots of lemongrass appear under the cotyledon knee in the form of a whitish loop. Straightening, they take the form of a hook, and then the cotyledons open and real leaves form. Schisandra sprouts are very tender, they need watering, systematic loosening of the crust between rows and in a row (Fig. 2). With dense crops, they should be thinned out. To protect against severe overheating and wilting of seedlings, it is required to shade the ridges and protect the seedlings from the wind.

Amateur gardeners advise adding a few dill seeds to lemongrass crops in rows. Shoots of dill, appearing before shoots of lemongrass, indicate rows of lemongrass, shoots of which appear later. Individual dill plants are left in rows until autumn and provide light shading for the seedlings. During the growing season, with early shoots, lemongrass plants reach a height of 12-15 cm.

To accelerate the growth of seedlings, liquid dressings are carried out in combination with watering, to which they are very responsive. In the first half of summer, slurry and mullein can be used as dressings. To apply top dressing, grooves are dug near the row and fertilizers are poured into them (1 liter per linear meter). After the fertilizer has been absorbed, the grooves are closed.

In the middle of August- in early September, superphosphate and potassium chloride are added to the rows - 50 g of each fertilizer per square meter. m of fertilized area. If the seedlings were grown in planting boxes, then they are planted in the ground for growing in June-July or in the spring of the next year. To prevent seedlings from sticking out in winter, as well as protecting them from freezing in autumn, it is recommended to mulch the ridges with sawdust, peat or humus, and also lay them out on them branches or shields for the accumulation of snow. The same is done with planting boxes with seedlings. It should be added here that unshaded seedlings are characterized by weak growth during the first two years and early transition to the formation of rhizomatous shoots. In conditions of light shading, on the contrary, they intensively form leaves and increase in height. Two-year-old seedlings grown in this way usually reach a height of 30-45 cm and are suitable for planting in a permanent place.

VEGETATIVE REPRODUCTION

Schisandra chinensis can be propagated by green cuttings, layering, rhizome shoots. In fact, the vegetative method of propagating magnolia vine is used on a more limited scale than the seed method, since it does not allow obtaining a large number of seedlings. But it has a number of advantages for fixing and spreading the most valuable forms of lemongrass with a known gender.

The most efficient method of vegetative propagation- green cuttings. This method of propagating lemongrass with green cuttings differs little from propagating other fruit and berry plants in this way. In this reproduction of lemongrass, three conditions must be observed: the timing of cuttings, the age of mother plants and treatment with chemical growth stimulants. Shoots for cuttings are cut shortly before flowering, during flowering or shortly after flowering is completed (at the end of May- the first decade of July), since after flowering their rapid lignification occurs and the rooting rate of cuttings drops sharply. The younger the mother plant, the better and faster the cuttings take root. Optimum age of mother plants- 2-3 years. Cuttings are cut with 3 buds, about 7-8 cm long, from shoots growing in the middle and upper parts of the crown, from rhizome and coppice shoots of the current year. The lower cut is made 4-6 mm below the kidney, the upper- 2-4 mm higher. Leaves are removed near the lower and middle buds, and leaves are left at the upper bud. Immediately after cutting, the cuttings are lowered into a vessel with water. Then the cuttings are treated with a solution of indolylbutyric acid (IMA) or heteroauxin in concentrations accepted for such purposes and planted on the same day in cold greenhouses or planting boxes with wet sand. The best substrate for rooting cuttings is light and fertile, leafy soil is better. Roots usually appear in 30-35 days. The percentage of rooting does not exceed 20. For the winter, rooted cuttings must be dug up and stored in the sand in the basement at a temperature of 0 ... + 5 ° C.

The most accessible vegetative method of propagating magnolia vine in amateur practice is the method of propagating by layering vines. To obtain layering, part of the shoots located along the edges of the central liana are removed from the support, bent to the side, placed in pre-prepared grooves and pinned to the soil with hooks. The soil is well compacted, and a small layer of structural earth is poured on top of the shoots. The vines are laid in autumn or spring, before the start of sap flow. The shoots growing from the buds are tied to the supporting pegs. In the autumn of the second year, the layers are cut and used as seedlings. When digging and dividing rooted vines into parts, it is necessary to save as many roots and an earthen ball as possible, since lemongrass painfully tolerates transplantation. To do this, the soil is pre-moistened well.

Lemongrass also reproduces quite simply by root and rhizome shoots. Rhizome shoots are formed from numerous underground stems of lemongrass- rhizomes. At some distance from the mother plant, the tops of the rhizomes come to the surface and become above-ground shoots. The lateral buds of the rhizome, awakening underground, contribute to its branching and further growth. Rhizome offspring are usually separated from mother plants in spring. When digging up such offspring, you need to make sure that there is a branched root lobe on the rhizome. The length of the rhizome should be at least 30-40 cm. The offspring are immediately planted in a permanent place or added dropwise, watered abundantly and shaded, since even a short-term drying of the roots leads to a sharp decrease in survival rate. Schisandra seedlings obtained from green cuttings, layering or root shoots, when planted in a permanent place, must be watered abundantly for about 30 days.

The soil under lemongrass should be light in texture, drained, sufficiently moisture-absorbing, have a neutral or slightly acidic reaction. Lemongrass does not tolerate high standing groundwater (their height should not exceed 1.5 m) and prolonged flooding by floods and rainwater. If the site does not meet these conditions, it must be specially prepared. Otherwise, the plants will die in the coming years or will eke out a miserable existence, and you will not wait for the fruits from it.

For good growth and fruiting, lemongrass requires highly fertile soils, which are created from the moment the plants are planted. In the garden, plants are planted in planting pits or trenches up to 60 cm deep and up to 80 cm wide, which are filled with well-rotted humus or compost with the addition of superphosphate and wood ash. Good initial growth of young plants is determined solely by the quality of the filling of the planting hole or trench. To avoid stagnation in the zone of the root system, good drainage (through the bottom, walls) of the pit or trench should be provided, for which a layer of crushed stone or broken brick is placed on the bottom, and the edges of the pit or trench are dug up to the greatest possible depth with the addition of sand in the second year after landing.

Lemongrass has a superficial root system (the bulk of the roots are located in the surface layer of the soil, no deeper than 20-30 cm) and does not tolerate deep tillage when it is loosened, weeded or organic or mineral fertilizers are applied. If this condition is not met, it stops its growth and bears almost no fruit for one or two seasons. The norm for magnolia vine is loosening to a depth of no more than 5 cm, applying mineral fertilizers to wells punched with scrap, and organic fertilizers (with shallow loosening) evenly under the entire plant. Schizandra responds very well to liquid organic supplements (mullein infusions, chicken manure, slurry solutions, etc.). Schisandra is fed twice in spring and once in early summer (before flowering, after flowering and during the formation of ovaries). Top dressing, along with applied fertilizers, contributes to good fruit set and, most importantly, to the laying of a significant number of fruit buds in abundantly fruiting plants, especially with female flowers, which ensures a high annual yield.

It should also be remembered that lemongrass reacts painfully to soil compaction under it and significantly reduces the yield. In my garden, the yield of plants planted 0.3-0.5 m from the path was almost one and a half times less than that of plants that do not experience constant soil compaction. Therefore, lemongrass must be planted at least at a distance of at least 1-1.5 m from permanent garden paths.

AIR AND SOIL HUMIDITY REQUIREMENTS

Lemongrass is a moisture-loving culture. It is demanding both on soil moisture and air humidity. Even during a wet growing season, some watering is required. Plants also respond positively (especially during drought) to spraying. In no case should even partial wilting be allowed, because. at the same time, plants (especially fruit-bearing ones) begin to grow weakly, practically do not lay fruit buds and do not produce a crop for the next year. In order to conserve soil moisture and improve the condition of plants during dry periods, soil mulching is mandatory. Especially grateful lemongrass responds to mulch from the forest floor (deciduous or coniferous origin) up to 15-20 cm thick, which will last for several years and become a good organic fertilizer. This also eliminates the need to loosen the soil.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FORM OF GROWING

Under natural growing conditions, lemongrass is a large liana, reaching a length of 10-15 m. When grown in a garden, its length can reach 5 m or more. For normal growth and fruiting, the stalk of lemongrass, starting from the third year of growth, must be brought to a support and fixed on it. In the future (as it grows), it will wrap itself around the support clockwise, and no fixing is required. Fruiting in Schizandra seedlings occurs in the 5-6th year, in vegetatively propagated plants - in the 3-4th year. If lemongrass does not have a support, it will grow in the form of a dense bush, almost entirely consisting of long annual shoots and root offspring growing annually from its base. Being in the shade and receiving an insufficient amount of nutrients, in the absence of perennial wood, they practically do not lay fruit buds, and the plant begins to bear fruit very late (in my experience - in the 14th year), giving a scanty crop of brushes with a small number of small berries.

To obtain a high-yielding lemongrass plant, it is necessary to form a highly productive crown in it. Such a crown should have the maximum number of overgrown branches on which fruit buds are laid. First of all, you need to choose a reasonable plant height. Since lemongrass is a liana-like plant and its height is determined by the height of the support, a higher support is also required to obtain a more voluminous crown. In amateur gardens, a support height of 3-4 m is most appropriate, but not 1-2 m, which is recommended in almost all gardening manuals. It should be remembered that on a low support you will never get a large number of overgrown branches from a creeper. In addition, for a greater increase in the number of overgrowing branches, it is necessary to direct not one vine, but several (up to 5 or more) to one support. For this, I use shoots growing from the base of the vine in the region of the root collar, as well as offspring from it. This is done within 5-7 years. As a result, by the age of 10, a “twist” of several vines is formed on the support of the plant, as thick as a human hand, with the thickness of each vine in the lower part of the plant as thick as a human finger. The plant itself, with all the overgrowing branches, is a column with a diameter of up to 1 m or more. From a genetically potentially productive plant formed in this way, with proper care, one can already expect the laying of a large number of fruit buds.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PLACEMENT IN THE GARDEN

Lemongrass loves sunlight and should receive it within 7-8 hours. Therefore, plants need to be planted in open places, in the shade it practically does not bear fruit. In an amateur garden, it is better to plant plants at a distance of 1 m from each other and 3 m row from row. Experience shows that even with such plantings, after 8-10 years, the vines completely close with each other and represent a single green wall, although they bear fruit quite well. Therefore, for even better growth and fruiting of plants, the distance between plants in a row can be increased to 1.5 m. A number of authors recommend making the distance between plants 0.5-0.6 m, which is absolutely insufficient. In this case, the plants close up already at 5-6 years old, then they strongly shade each other and bear fruit poorly. It is irrational to place plants at large distances (2-3 m), because at the same time, the land area and the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe trellis with plants are poorly used, the pollination of plants worsens in case of bad weather, which, ultimately, can again reduce the yield.

Significantly thickens and depletes the lemongrass plant in adulthood by a strong annual growth of basal shoots. It must be constantly cut in the summer before lignification or in late autumn. However, it should be borne in mind that individual lianas of a plant or the entire plant may fall out for various reasons (damping, mechanical damage, etc.). Therefore, when cutting root shoots in case of repair, at least 3-4 reserve shoots should be left for each plant annually, removing them the next year.

REQUIREMENTS FOR INTER-POllination

Lemongrass is a monoecious plant, that is, both female and male flowers bloom on the same plant. Very rarely there are plants with either only female or only male flowers. However, in culture, things are somewhat different. In the experiments of Far Eastern scientists (A. A. Titlyanova, L. M. Shilova, G. T. Kazmina, and others), plants were grown from Schisandra seedlings, which, according to the ratio of male and female flowers, can be divided into several groups: permanently male and permanently a female group (i.e. individuals annually form only staminate or only pistillate flowers), a monoecious group (plants bear flowers of both sexes every year) and a group with an unstable sex ratio (staminate and pistillate flowers are formed in one year, and in another - only pistil). Establishing the nature of the sex of Schizandra seedlings when growing it in amateur gardens is very important, because. it is associated with the culling of a large number of infertile males.

According to the observations of A. A. Titlyanov (which are consistent with my observations), the largest number of fruit buds with female flowers is laid on long overgrowing branches. On short overgrowing branches, as a rule, fruit buds with male flowers are laid. Therefore, plants with long overgrowing branches should be selected for cultivation. In addition, it should be noted that on the shoots, especially in young vines with female and male flowers, the largest number of female flowers is formed in the upper part of the vine, on the shoots in the lower part of the vine, male flowers are mainly formed. Therefore, from this point of view, it is advisable to grow lemongrass plants on a higher support. Increases the laying of fruit buds with female flowers and the use of nitrogen supplements. The yield of lemongrass plants, even if they have a sufficient number of male and female flowers, to a very large extent depends on the usefulness of pollen, its fertilizing ability (fertility). Pollen fertility depends on the genetic characteristics of a particular individual, season conditions, wintering and other factors. There are individuals with sterile pollen, and self-fertile, and with defects in female flowers.

When planting seedlings, amateur gardeners need to take at least 5-10 seedlings in order to further reject seedlings with permanently male flowers, seedlings bearing a small number of female flowers or with defects in female flowers, seedlings with poor pollen fertility. In addition, such a number of seedlings, to a certain extent, guarantees normal mutual pollination of plants. When planting vegetatively propagated plants of a known sex, for the above reasons, it is necessary to take 3-4 seedlings from different plants.

It is absolutely wrong to plant only one plant. In the absence of other lemongrass plants in neighboring areas nearby, such a plant may never bear fruit. It should be remembered that only the planting of a sufficient number of plants with purely female flowers and monoecious plants with a predominance of female flowers, as well as plants with male flowers with good pollen fertility, can ensure good cross-pollination and high yields. Of course, the best mutual pollination will be observed when planting one or more plants with purely male flowers, which is clearly not very justified. The same can be achieved by planting several monoecious plants with a sufficient number of male flowers. With all this, you should know that, as a rule, in monoecious plants with age, the number of female flowers begins to prevail over the number of male ones.

ATTITUDE TO WINTER FROST

Lemongrass in our conditions is relatively winter-hardy. After an even winter without thaws with temperatures down to -40 ° C, with full ripening of the shoots, it normally vegetates, hibernates and bears fruit well. However, the period of winter dormancy at lemongrass ends in January (and according to other sources, even in December), so the February and March thaws, alternating with a sharp drop in air temperature (up to -30 ... -35 ° C) usually lead to significant freezing fruit buds. Frosts exceeding -40 ° C (for example, the winters of 1984-1985, 2005-2006), even during the dormant period with incomplete ripening of the shoots, usually lead to freezing and death of part of the fruit buds and freezing of one-year growth. After such winters, the plants grow well, but bear fruit poorly. In especially severe winters (1966-1967, 1968-1969 and 1978-1979), even with relatively good ripening of shoots, complete freezing of fruit buds, significant freezing of one-year growth and even perennial wood was observed.

In order to preserve fruit buds, annual and perennial shoots from freezing and death in harsh winters, it is advisable to grow magnolia vine plants in a semi-slatted form with the removal of vines from the support for the winter to the ground and covering them with snow and then raising them to the support next spring. I have been leading such a mode of culture of lemongrass plants since the late 60s of the last century.

Lemongrass Chinese on a removable support

Of course, the work of systematically removing and lifting plants from a permanent support was a significant inconvenience and a great deal of labor. Therefore, I developed a technology for growing lemongrass on a removable (movable) support. I believe that in order to ensure a good annual harvest of fruits, lemongrass in our conditions must be grown on a removable support, removing the vine for the winter and covering it with snow before the onset of frost. As a removable support, I use a flexible stranded wire with steel wires (to prevent it from being pulled out) in plastic insulation. To prevent the vine from sliding along the support, knots are made on the wire every 0.5 m, tightly inserting metal (preferably stainless metal) or plastic pins into them. The wire is fixed at the base of the plants on a metal pipe laid along the row (you can drive a metal rod into each plant). At the upper end of the stranded wire, a loop of a single-core steel wire with a diameter of 2-3 mm is fixed. Along the edges of a row of lemongrass plants, two metal pipes of the appropriate height are driven into the ground (I have their height from the soil surface is 3.5 m) and the crossbar is well fixed on them, also from a metal pipe. On a crossbar made of the same steel wire as the loop at the upper end of the stranded wire, hooks are fixed near each plant. Lifting the plant from the soil surface together with the removable support in this case consists in putting on the loop at the upper end of the support on the hook on the crossbar, we will eat the plants - in unhooking the loop from the hook. Such an operation is performed using a rope tied to the upper end of the support and thrown over the crossbar, which makes it easier, with a significant weight of the plant and support, to hook and unhook the loop from the hook, and the ladder-ladder in just a few minutes. I shoot and raise my 10 twenty-five-year-old plants in just half an hour, and when I remove them, I still manage to arrange them along the row on the soil surface in the same time.

In the last two past winters, I decided to once again check the feasibility of removing magnolia vine plants in the fall from a permanent support on the ground and shelter for the winter with snow, and left them on a support. Such an experiment again showed a strong dependence of plant productivity on the characteristics of the course and severity of winter. So, in the spring of 2011, almost 100% death of fruit buds was observed, and the harvest of berries was completely absent, and in the spring of 2012 there was also a partial death of fruit buds, about 50 percent. this year.

ATTITUDE TO WINTER HEATING

The properties that characterize the not quite sufficient winter hardiness of magnolia vine in our conditions include the tendency of both young and adult plants to warm up.

Like most Far Eastern plants in warm, snowy winters, especially when snow is established on soil that has not frozen in autumn, lemongrass often props up in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe root neck or slightly higher, and plants lowered to the ground from a removable support and covered with snow, and in other parts. It is especially unfortunate when adult plants are supported in the region of the root collar, when the entire above-ground crown is completely destroyed. In my case, cases of magnolia vine were observed more than once, and even when the whole plant was covered with snow, warming was observed almost exclusively only in the region of the root neck (warming of other parts of the crown was observed only 2 times). In the winters of 1999-2000 and 2000-2001, the aerial parts of three 20-year-old plants were propped up and died, and individual vines died in two. Measures to combat underheating are the same as I described for stone fruits.

ATTITUDE TO SPRING AND AUTUMN FROSTS

Flowers, ovaries and green parts of lemongrass are subject to spring and autumn frosts. Weak spring frosts cause the death of blooming flowers, ovaries and ends of shoots with young leaves. Plants in this case bear little fruit, but grow well and lay fruit buds. Strong spring frosts completely kill both blossoming and unopened flowers, ovaries and, almost completely, new green shoots with all leaves. The secondary growth of shoots from dormant buds on plants after this begins with a delay of a month or more from the first. Lemongrass spends a lot of plastic substances on their growth, but they ripen only by the very end of the growing season, or in bad years they do not have time to ripen at all. At the same time, plants overwinter worse, and if the shoots do not ripen, they can freeze even in a not very frosty winter, they have weakened or absent budding. Autumn frosts in mid-August (before the crop ripens) usually destroy the ends of the shoots, thereby worsening the preparation of plants for winter and the development of fruit buds.

Based on the great sensitivity of lemongrass to spring and autumn frosts, it is advisable to choose elevated places for its cultivation. Unsuitable are areas located in depressions, swamps, in the valleys of small rivers, on the shores of small lakes. To combat frost, in addition to the well-known measures (smoking, sprinkling, fogging, watering, air mixing, etc.), it is advisable to carry out the following:

1. To slow down the beginning of the vegetation of plants, they are lifted onto a support from the soil immediately after the snow melts.

2. It is better to grow plants on a high support (3-4 m or more), taking out the bulk of the shoots with leaves, flowers and ovaries from the most frost-prone surface part to a height of more than 1-1.5 m.

3. Raised plants must be covered with a film, throwing it over the top bar so that they hang from both sides of the trellis to the level of the soil. The lower ends of the film are dug in, the side ends are fastened with clothespins or otherwise. Even a simple throwing of the film over the crossbar without fixing it at the bottom and from the sides saves a significant part of the crop during frosts.

4. Remove the vines from the support for the time of frost and cover with a film on the ground.

All of these measures were used by me and showed their effectiveness. Of course, special stationary shelters can also be made for this purpose.

SOME OBSERVATIONS WHEN GROWING LEMONGRASS

A number of authors recommend that in the case of a cold and rainy spring, in the absence of insect summer, artificial pollination of lemongrass flowers is carried out, picking off male flowers and placing them in female flowers for half an hour. It seems to me that these recommendations do not stand up to scrutiny. This can be done on 10-20 flowers, and imagine huge plants on a trellis or taken from it and located on the surface of the soil with many thousands of flowers. How can they be artificially pollinated? I can't imagine it at all.

Dear amateur gardeners, in this series of articles, based on numerous literary data and almost 61 years of my own experience, I tried to talk about the features of growing magnolia vine in our rather harsh conditions. Some individual technological measures and techniques may seem too complicated and time-consuming. Although, it seems to me, on the contrary, everything is extremely simplified. But I want you to understand that the main benefit in growing lemongrass is still getting fruits. And it is possible to obtain significant yields of fruits only if all the requirements of the cultivation technology aimed at this are met and observed. Naturally, if lemongrass is grown for decorative purposes or gardeners agree to put up with partial or complete loss of crop within 1-3 years after severe winters, then many of the proposed technological methods can be eliminated or significantly simplified. For example, to exclude the removal of a creeper from a support on the ground for the winter and covering it with snow, instead of the proposed removable support, use stationary or trees and shrubs growing in a garden plot, etc. I consider the main goal of this series of articles to be that such a useful plant as Chinese magnolia vine grows in every garden plot and every gardener can use all parts of this plant for food and medicinal purposes, and berries, as I could imagine, say, on exhibition in KOSK "Russia".

Lemongrass keeps you young

This wonderful liana

With bright red fruits

And enchants, and invigorates,

Cures our sciatica.

I want to tell readers how useful are Schisandra chinensis seeds - a powerful natural adaptogen.

In this plant, all its parts are valuable, and fruits and seeds are considered medicinal raw materials.

Chinese lemongrass has long been used by man as an adaptogen, like ginseng. It has the ability to have a powerful general strengthening effect. When it is used, the body's resistance to all harmful environmental factors increases.

The term "adaptogen" is derived from the word "adaptation", which means "adaptation". Adaptogens by themselves are not drugs and are not intended to treat specific diseases. They simply strengthen the body to such an extent that it is able to cope with many diseases on its own.

Adaptogens help to better assimilate information, improve memory, overcome fatigue, eliminate minor ailments and prevent infections, activate energy in athletes, restore strength and health after illnesses. The use of adaptogens allows the body to more easily endure such adverse environmental factors as cold, heat, ionizing radiation, lack of oxygen (hypoxia), and great physical exertion.

In many countries, a whole branch of medicine is now rapidly developing, aimed at creating drugs for healthy people, drugs that do not cure anything, but create prerequisites for maintaining health and increasing efficiency. After all, it is much easier to prevent the development of diseases than to treat already developed diseases.

Since all adaptogens are of plant origin, they are completely harmless in medical dosages. In medicine, lemongrass has been used and is used mainly as a tonic for the central nervous system. It is used with reduced physical and mental performance, with asthenic conditions, impotence, with sluggishly granulating wounds and trophic ulcers, with various heart diseases associated with hypotension, with kidney and skin diseases.

The fruits of Schisandra chinensis contain sugars, tannic and coloring compounds, fatty (containing glycerides of linoleic, linolenic, oleic and other acids) and organic (malic, citric and tartaric) acids, macro- (K, Ca, Mg, Fe) and trace elements (Ba, Se, Ni, Pb, J, B). The same macro- and microelements are also found in lemongrass leaves. In addition, essential oils, sesquiterpene substances, ascorbic acid, vitamin E, as well as schizandrol and schizandrin, compounds that determine the main biological properties of the plant, have been isolated from the fruits.

The seeds contain tonic substances schizandrin and schizandrol, vitamin E and fatty oil.

Scientists have found a direct link between stimulating substances (schizandrin, schizandrol), which are found in large quantities in seeds, with improved liver function, that is, it better cleanses the blood of various poisons. To do this, use the drug limolecithin as prescribed by a doctor. It has been established that lemongrass tincture has a pronounced choleretic effect. This indicates the expediency of its use in cholecystitis and other disorders of the gallbladder (Fruentov, 1974).

With vascular insufficiency, low blood pressure, lemongrass causes an improvement in well-being, increases blood pressure. I was personally convinced of this by taking lemongrass preparations. Now I do not have spring fatigue syndrome, the pressure is 120/80, but it was 100/60. The headaches, which especially tormented me when the weather changed, stopped.

With menopause in men and women, to relieve nervous tension, irritability, bad mood, which may be accompanied by evening and night palpitations, pain in the retrosternal region, take tea or tincture of lemongrass fruits. Drink constantly until the desired effect is achieved.

Lemongrass preparations are taken on an empty stomach or 4 hours after a meal. During the period of taking lemongrass tincture, there is a significant decrease in the incidence of influenza and colds.

In Chinese folk medicine, fruits and seeds are taken for various diseases: general loss of strength, sexual weakness, anemia, tuberculosis, diseases of the stomach, liver, kidneys, respiratory diseases (bronchitis, bronchial asthma), colds, gonorrhea, dysentery, nervous and mental illness. With their help, anemia caused by gastric ulcer and ulcerative colitis during bleeding is successfully treated.

Tibetan medicine uses the fruits and seeds of lemongrass to treat tuberculosis not only of the lungs, but also of the eyes; reproductive system; bronchial asthma, especially during the autumn exacerbation; chronic bronchitis lasting for years. Lemongrass seeds are recommended by folk healers to treat gastritis (take no more than 2 g of powder for 4 doses 20 minutes before meals) and even diabetes.

Lemongrass preparations have a beneficial effect on vision, so they are recommended for transport drivers, especially truckers, and people who need to drive at night. But, if a night's sleep is provided, then you can not take lemongrass seeds after 17-18 hours. Otherwise, a sleepless night is guaranteed.

Lemongrass tincture is prepared with 70% alcohol (1:3) or vodka. Crushed fruits are poured with alcohol or vodka, infused for 14 days in a dark place, shaking occasionally. Take 20-30 drops with water before meals or 4 hours after meals 3 times a day. If the tincture is made on vodka, then it is taken 20-30 minutes in the morning before meals, a teaspoon (40-50 drops). Schisandra seed powder is taken 0.5 g before meals 2 times a day. When taking lemongrass, the stimulating effect occurs in 30-40 minutes, and its effect lasts 5-6 hours.

Lemongrass does not cause unwanted side effects on the human body. In the Far East, lemongrass seeds have been used almost since childhood, and no poisoning or deterioration in health has ever been found.

The dosage of lemongrass is strictly individual, you should not get carried away with large doses. However, a lasting effect of treatment is observed only with prolonged use of a small (medical) amount of lemongrass for at least one month. With nervous excitement, insomnia, impaired cardiac activity and hypertension, epilepsy, increased intracranial pressure, during a period of strong excitement, lemongrass is contraindicated.

Practice has confirmed the high efficiency of the use of lemongrass seeds in chronic gastritis - the secretory function of the stomach quickly normalizes. Even a single intake of 2 g of seed powder led to an increase in hypoacidity and reduced the hyperacidity of gastric juice. According to L. Ya. Sklyarevsky, I. A. Gubanov, taking powder from lemongrass seeds 1 g 3 times a day before meals quickly relieved pain and normalized the acidity of gastric juice.

Schisandra chinensis seeds can be taken by sick people, as well as those who have had a disease to stimulate the body until complete recovery. It is useful to take lemongrass and perfectly healthy people to improve well-being. Official medicine has proven that in healthy people lemongrass prevents the onset of a feeling of fatigue and helps to successfully cope with the ever-increasing stresses of modern life. Lemongrass relieves drowsiness and lethargy, improves mood, and most importantly, is a powerful tool in the fight against aging. It helps the body to mobilize and work for a long time in the usual rhythm.

V. N. Shalamov

Foreword

Chinese lemongrass can be an ornament to your garden and produce tasty and healthy fruits. And in order to grow it, you need to know the secrets of planting and care - we'll talk about them today.

In order to grow lemongrass, which is used to create, it is necessary, first of all, to choose a good and healthy seedling. It is best to choose a two- or three-year-old seedling. Despite the fact that the vines of the plant may be of short length, the root system will already be developed and powerful. It is desirable that it has at least two main branches with a length of at least 25 cm.

Saplings of Chinese magnolia vine

When choosing, keep an eye on the roots - they should be undamaged and a little wet, otherwise the survival rate and further growth of Chinese magnolia vine can be very slow. It is good if the plants were recently dug up and sold with a clod of earth. Pay attention to the bark - it should be smooth and elastic, since wrinkled bark indicates that the tree was dug out a long time ago. If you purchase a seedling in the fall, then it is advisable to remove all the leaves so as not to damage the buds in the axils - this can also stop the growth of the plant.

Be careful when transporting. Wrap the roots with a damp cloth and a plastic bag. If you still purchased a seedling with dry roots, dip the plant in water for a few days. What if there is no way to plant Chinese lemongrass immediately after purchase? In this case, it is necessary to dig it in a dark place on the site. Dig an elongated hole with a slight slope, carefully place the seedling in the hole and fill it on top so that not only the roots, but also half of the shoots themselves are under the ground. Be sure to water the seedling.

Before planting a seedling, you should prepare a place - this will guarantee the successful result of your work. When choosing a site, remember that the plant prefers sunny and warm places, completely intolerant of cold winds and drafts. Ideally, Chinese lemongrass is best planted on the south or west side.

Make sure that water from the roof does not water the plant when it rains. That is why, when landing, step back from the walls of the building by at least 1.5 meters. Pay attention to the soil - planting a seedling on loose soil and good drainage can give excellent results. It is also advisable to slightly moisten the soil before planting the plant. Pick the right landing time. For the southern regions, it is better to stop at the end of September or October; in other regions, work can be carried out in early spring.

Planting a seedling on loose soil

The landing process is as follows:

• About two weeks before planting seedlings, a hole is dug on the site about 40 cm deep and up to 60 cm wide.
• At the bottom of the hole we lay out drainage from small pebbles or broken bricks.
• On top we put a mixture of humus, soddy soil or compost.

After that, feel free to plant a seedling. At the same time, try not to deepen the root neck of the plant much - it is best if it is at ground level. If you are going to plant several Chinese magnolia vines, keep a distance of 1.5 m between them, the distance between rows should be about 2.5 meters.

Some gardeners prefer to grow this vine from seed. The seeds themselves can be purchased at the store or prepared independently from ripe lemongrass fruits. Before planting, the seeds are soaked in water at room temperature for a week. This procedure will help you identify poor-quality and diseased seed - 2-3 days after soaking, poor-quality seeds will emerge.

Ripe Lemongrass Seeds

The next step is stratification. You will need sand, which should be disinfected by watering with a solution of potassium permanganate. Mix the seeds in the sand in a ratio of 1:3. Pour the mixture into a wooden container and leave it in a room where the temperature will be maintained at 20 degrees. Once every two days, the mixture of sand and seeds must be moistened. This stage lasts about a month.

The next stage is stratification with the help of snow (hardening). Cover the sand with a layer of snow and hold for a month. If this is not possible, place the container with future seedlings in a cool basement for at least 2 months. You can plant in the spring. To do this, form grooves about 2 cm deep in the selected area, fill in the seedlings there, sprinkle with soil and lightly water. Do not forget to mulch plantings using peat. After 1.5–2 years, the grown seedling of Chinese magnolia vine can be transplanted to a permanent place.

Caring for this plant is quite simple, all you need to do is to feed the Chinese lemongrass, water it properly and create a support. When the plant is three years old, it needs to be fed. Work begins in April - about 20 g of saltpeter is poured into the trunk circle, then the plantings are mulched with compost or humus. In the summer, every three weeks, top dressing is carried out with liquid organic matter (chicken droppings or mullein).

In the autumn, after the leaves fall, make:

• 100 g of wood ash;
• 20 g of superphosphate.

About 5 years after planting, the vines will begin to bear fruit. At this time, the plants should be fed with nitrophoska (about 40 g), and after flowering, bird droppings are added under the Chinese magnolia vine. In autumn, each plant needs 50 g of superphosphate and 30 g of potassium sulfate. Once every 3 years, about 5 kg of compost should be embedded in the soil to a depth of 8 cm (all calculations per square meter).

To provide plants with complete care, one should not forget about watering. In its homeland, lemongrass grows at an increased level of air humidity, therefore, in the hot season, creepers must be sprayed with warm water. Adult lemongrass is watered in dry weather - each bush needs about 60 liters of warm water. Also, the plants are watered after each top dressing, mulching the soil with dry earth to preserve moisture.

Caring for adult Chinese lemongrass

When caring for lemongrass, do not forget about the need to create supports. Creepers grown on trellises will receive more light, resulting in larger berries. But if you do not make a support, the plant will take the form of a small shrub and, most likely, will not bear fruit. it is better to install in the year of planting. If this does not work out, tie the seedlings to pegs, and the next year, establish a permanent support.

To build a structure, you will need posts at least 3 m high. Dig them to a depth of 50 cm at a distance of up to 3 meters from each other.

On the pillars in three rows, you need to stretch the wire: we place the lowest one at a height of 0.5 meters, the rest we beat off at 0.7 m. In the first year after planting, we tie the shoots to the lower wire, in the following years - to those located above. Plants are tied to supports throughout the warm season, trying to fan out new shoots. At the same time, the shoots are not removed for the winter - they must remain on the trellis.

Also, do not forget about pruning, which is an important part of proper care. They begin to carry out work from the third year after planting the vine. By this time, the root system stops growing so quickly, but the aerial part begins to develop, "by leaps and bounds." Of the young shoots that have appeared, no more than 5 pieces should be left, the rest should be cut off at the soil level. In adult plants, unproductive shoots must be removed, replacing them with younger and stronger shoots.

At the same time, it is advisable to carry out work after the foliage has fallen, however, if lemongrass is heavily overgrown, pruning is also carried out in summer. But in spring and winter it is impossible to cut, because after this event there is an active sap flow and drying of the vines. The only thing you need and can remove every year is root shoots. Once a year, sanitary pruning is usually carried out, when dried and small branches are removed, which greatly thicken the crown of Chinese magnolia vine.

When planting, the strongest shoot of the seedling should be cut into three buds, the roots are shortened by 20-25 cm, weak shoots are removed. The roots are dipped in a clay mash with mullein (1 liter per bucket). The seedling is placed on a cone-shaped tubercle, the roots are spread in all directions and sprinkled with earth. Then it is compacted, the plant is watered abundantly and the near-trunk circle is mulched. It is better to plant several plants at once in a trench 50 cm wide and no more than 60 cm deep. In the middle of it, at a distance of 1.5 m from each other, metal stakes are driven in to secure the support. To the bottom

they put crushed stone, gravel, broken brick, construction debris with a layer of 30 cm and lightly compact, on top - fertile land mixed with manure (60-70 kg per 1 m) and sand (3-4 buckets), add lime - 500 g. phosphorus - 150 g nitrogen - 40-50 g per 1 m. Planting time - autumn and spring.

A deep landing pit for magnolia vine is not needed; when planting, it’s enough just to dig deep (on a shovel bayonet) the area, after adding 1 sq. m 2-3 buckets of well-decomposed humus. In the future, the soil under the bushes is not dug up, but only loosened shallowly.

For a permanent place in the garden, lemongrass is recommended to be planted in the spring. Choose a site on an elevated place where there is no stagnant water and where you can put trellises. Landing pits are prepared at a distance of 1-1.5 m in a row. From the nursery, seedlings are delivered with a closed root system, i.e. with a clod of damp earth wrapped in plastic wrap. A mixture of organo-mineral fertilizers is applied to the planting pit 40x40 cm in the same doses as for other berries. Stones, sand are laid at the bottom of the drainage pit, then fertile soil mixed with fertilizers is poured. A seedling is placed on a mound in the hole, watered, and the soil is compacted around it. The root neck of the seedling is not deepened. After the soil has settled, there should not be a depression near the seedling to avoid stagnant water. During the summer, weeding is carried out, fine loosening. In dry weather, seedlings are watered, and the soil around is mulched. In the first years of life, young seedlings are especially

Lemongrass is propagated by both seeds and cuttings, but it is better to propagate by seeds. Just remember - the seeds must be both male and female. Seeds must be stratified, i.e. withstand 90-100 days in wet sand at a temperature of 17-20°C. In the spring, as soon as the earth warms up to a depth of 10-15 cm, seeds are sown to a depth of 4-5 cm, and the distance between rows is 20-25 cm, the ridges should be shaded, covered with shields at a height of 80-120 cm from the ground. Lemongrass is planted in a permanent place at the age of 2-3 years. After disembarking, it is necessary to provide support for lemongrass so that it can catch on a rope, a tree. The best time for planting lemongrass is spring. The soil should be moisture-intensive, breathable, and this is peat crumb with sand, sawdust. Heavy clay soils are unsuitable for growing lemongrass. The acidity of the soil should be 5.4-5.6 Ph, and for successful engraftment it is necessary to maintain soil and air humidity of 80-90%.

The first harvest can be obtained 5-6 years after planting. The harvest from one plant is about 3 kg, however, there is a frequency of fruiting every 2-3 years.

Location selection

For the successful cultivation of lemongrass on the site, choose a place where the vine will be illuminated by direct sunlight in July for no more than 5-8 hours. Note that lemongrass is photophilous, but young plants can withstand slight shading.

The need for support

The most important and enduring feature of lemongrass is a pronounced need for a support along which it rises. Schisandra plants grown from seed initially have a fibrous root system with a small, weakly branching root. In the 3rd year of life, seedlings begin to form curly shoots that need support. Not finding it, they twist into a bundle, hang down to the ground, which slows down their growth. Without support, both in seedlings and in adult plants, new shoots form from the root neck, which spread along the ground, forming many underground shoots and rhizomatous shoots. Such plants do not bloom.

A sufficient amount of light is needed, and supports are required. If lemongrass has nothing to cling to, its shoots will spread along the ground and give a lot of root shoots and layering. In spring or autumn, you can dig out part of the layering and transplant it to another place. This is one of the most reliable breeding methods. Lemongrass is easy to propagate by cuttings, which are cut in July from the tops of young shoots. They are good

root after treatment with growth stimulants (heteroauxin and some other drugs). You can sow freshly harvested seeds in the fall, which will sprout in the spring, or sow them in the spring after a two-month stratification.

pruning

In order to thin the crown during thickening, pruning is carried out in the summer. Cut shoots are used for cuttings. In autumn, the vines are cleared of rhizomatous shoots, which can be planted in the garden. Pruning is carried out in the fall, removing dry vines, weak and extra shoots. For the winter, creepers cannot be removed from the trellis. With a strong thickening of the crown, pruning can be carried out in the summer, using cut annual shoots for cuttings. Rhizome shoots are removed in late autumn, also using it as planting material to expand plantings.

The soil

The best conditions for growing lemongrass are loose fertile soil with a neutral reaction of the environment, for example, light and medium loams. At home, lemongrass is usually found on well-drained mountain slopes. Lemongrass grows on soil with a slightly acidic reaction, with a lack of phosphorus. The best for the growth of seedlings is a mixture of soil, peat, sand in a ratio of 1:2:1. On pure perlite sand, after 2 weeks, the growth of seedlings stops due to the depletion of the reserve substances of the seed and the lack of top dressing. Lemongrass has a shallow root system, and therefore deep loosening can damage the roots. The soil is finely loosened around the vines.

Watering

Lemongrass does not tolerate close standing groundwater or waterlogging. It is somewhat less demanding on air and soil moisture than actinidia plants. The main attention in the first years of life of seedlings should be given to the creation of a favorable moisture regime. These plants do not tolerate stagnant soil moisture, but respond well to an increase in air humidity. It should be borne in mind that in their homeland vines grow at high relative humidity. For successful growth, lemongrass seedlings in a dry summer should be sprayed with water in the morning and evening to create favorable conditions for the growth of shoots.

top dressing

When grown in culture in the first and subsequent years, lemongrass is very responsive to the application of organic fertilizers. Lemongrass responds well to organic and mineral fertilizers, watering. Fertilizers are applied superficially, the soil is loosened shallowly, since the roots are at a depth of 8-10 cm.

plant lemongrass in a shady spot on slightly acidic soil rich in organic fertilizers;

in the second year, give the vine support, and in the future, ensure the height of the support so that lemongrass climbs along it to the sun;

protect lemongrass from both groundwater and high water (the soil must be sufficiently drained);

do not dig or loosen the soil around lemongrass;

don't forget to water it, but don't overdo it.

Procurement of raw materials

Fruits, seeds, young shoots are harvested as medicinal raw materials. Berries are harvested as they ripen, leaves - in early summer, shoots - in spring. Most often, mature fruits and seeds are harvested, dried and dried in dryers at a temperature not exceeding 60 ° C.

The berries are removed carefully, without crushing them and without damaging the vine. The berries are dried in the shade, under a canopy, or in the oven, but the temperature during drying should not exceed 50 ° C.

Schisandra chinensis leaves are removed dark green in August-September, dried and used to make tea.

In home gardens of domestic gardeners, Chinese lemongrass is still a rare guest. This is due, first of all, to the lack of information about the cultivation of this wonderful medicinal plant.

The description of its characteristics is new for many Russian users, but in China, the healing properties of the plant have been used in folk medicine since ancient times and are used in modern pharmacological preparations. In fact, there is nothing complicated in growing it, and performing the usual activities when planting and caring for lemongrass in the open field will allow you to get a bountiful harvest of the healthiest berries.

Origin and description of culture

Other names for this plant are Manchurian magnolia vine, schisandra (from the Latin name Schisandra chinensis). Schisandra chinensis is a perennial from the Limonnikov family. For the first time in scientific literature, it was described in 1837 by the botanist N. S. Turchaninov.

Botanical description and varieties

Branching, winding around tree trunks, the stems of Schisandra chinensis can be up to 15 meters long, although their thickness is small - no more than 2 centimeters. The bark of young shoots is yellow, darkening to dark brown with age. The wedge-shaped leaves, alternately located on the stems of climbing vines, like the rest of the plant, have a specific smell of lemon.

After the fall of slightly pink and white petals, multi-berry brushes (20-25 fruits each) are formed in place of the flowers of Schisandra chinensis. The flowers on the plant are male and female.

Among the garden and wild-growing lemongrass, there are several varieties or groups that have similar characteristics (mainly in terms of the appearance, size and design of the fruit):

• cylindrical - with fruits of the appropriate shape. The brushes are 5-10 cm in size, and the fruitlets in them are no more than a centimeter in diameter. This is the most common group of Chinese lemongrass;
• long-handed - with a correspondingly very long brush (at least 7 cm);
• spherical - with an unusual round shape of the brush. Fruit berries in it are located at the very top, forming the shape of a ball.

The plant is unpretentious, grows well in garden plots. It is valued for a large number of useful properties, but it also looks very beautiful: in spring it is covered with fragrant flowers, which in summer are replaced by berry tassels brightly red against the background of yellow-green foliage. This is an excellent decorative planting for arbors, verandas, an excellent "material" for living fences and hedges. It should only be taken into account that without supports, Chinese magnolia vine develops into a low shrub that blooms, but rarely bears fruit.

It should not be confused with Chinese magnolia vine grass Crimean magnolia vine, which also exudes a pleasant, lemon-like smell, but has a medium-sized bush form and is a representative of a completely different botanical family.

Where does lemongrass grow?

Schizandra Manchurian is found in the wild in China and on the Japanese islands, and on the territory of our country - in the Amur Region, in the south of Sakhalin Island, in some areas of the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories. An uncultivated type of vines of Chinese magnolia vine - impenetrable thickets - are found in broad-leaved cedar, coniferous-deciduous forests, near water bodies.

Chinese magnolia vine does not tolerate prolonged stagnation of water in the ground, therefore, it does not grow in floodplains that are subject to prolonged waterlogging. In the mountains, it is found at an altitude of up to 500-600 meters above sea level.

Useful Features

All parts of the schizandra - from roots to fruits - have healing properties, but more than others, the berries, including the seeds in them, give benefits. The former are saturated with vitamins C, E, tannins, selenium, iodine, manganese, copper, zinc and iron. The list of useful substances is supplemented by various minerals in the composition of salts and useful acids.

The seeds are rich in fatty and essential oils, resins, phosphorus and iron, schizandrol and schizandrin - substances that have a tonic effect.

Thanks to such a rich composition, Schisandra chinensis berries are used in the treatment of the following diseases (if there are no contraindications):

• cardiovascular problems - medicines with Chinese lemongrass strengthen the tissues of the heart muscle and are indicated to patients if they do not cause side effects - tachycardia and chest pain;
• chronic gastritis - the use of drugs based on schizander seeds helps to normalize the secretory gastric function and at the same time effectively relieves pain;
• respiratory diseases - chronic bronchitis, pneumonia;
• anemia, low hemoglobin;
• menopausal problems, hormonal disruptions - Chinese magnolia vine stimulates the adrenal glands, simultaneously relieving menstrual pain;
• impotence;
• tuberculosis;
• constant depression and chronic stress - the berries of the plant contribute to relaxation, improve the psychophysical state. They are part of effective tonic drinks.

Contraindications to the use of schizandra may be associated with its overdose, as well as the following conditions:

• during pregnancy and breastfeeding;
• with epilepsy, high intracranial pressure, a tendency to insomnia;
• suffering from allergies;
• with infectious diseases;
• with liver diseases;
• children and adolescents up to 12 years of age.

Breeding methods in the backyard

For propagation of Schisandra chinensis, vegetative and seed methods are used.

The plant is propagated by root cuttings or cuttings. This method is called vegetative: in spring, the side shoots are lowered to the ground, pinned neatly and sprinkled with soil. In a year, they take root, they are cut off, dug up and transplanted to where they will constantly grow in the future. This is a simpler and more popular option that allows you to transplant lemongrass: in the second, maximum - third year, the plant bears fruit. But in general, the way how to breed Chinese magnolia vine does not affect the final result and depends only on the gardener's capabilities or convenience. As a result of any of the breeding options, subject to the cultivation practices, strong fruit-bearing plants grow.

Seeds are planted only freshly harvested, as they lose their germination capacity quickly. The seedlings grown from them are moved to a permanent place next year.

How to grow lemongrass

The development of Chinese schizandra, its resistance to diseases is mainly influenced by the correct choice of a place for planting it. Soil fertilization and top dressing are common for horticultural plantings. Like the vast majority of vines, Chinese lemongrass on the site, the cottage takes root well. It is easy to grow: minimal effort ensures a beautiful appearance of a well-developed plant and a good harvest of berries.

Agrotechnical requirements

It is not difficult to choose the conditions “liked” by the culture, and it will thank for them with strong growth and fruiting:

• sufficient illumination - at least 8 hours of daylight for adult plants. To do this, when planting Chinese magnolia vine near a house or garden buildings, you can choose both the southern and eastern sides - it is enough that the tops of the vines are well lit;
• the acidity of the earth is closer to neutral;
• minimizing drafts and strong winds. To plant Chinese magnolia vine in constantly and strongly blown areas - doom it to death in advance;
• provision with props - trellis, fence, wall of the house, gazebo, any other structure.

The soil for planting is prepared by standard digging with the addition of humus and peat. If the soil is heavy, it is advisable to drain it with river pebbles, broken bricks.

In the conditions of the Moscow region, planting and caring for a Chinese magnolia vine plant involves the fulfillment of the above requirements - this is enough to get an excellent result. Frost-resistant vines are suitable for the climate of Russia in the middle zone - grown here, they need shelter only in the first couple of years of growth. The cultivation of Chinese schizander in the Urals or Siberia requires shelter and adult vines to protect against dangerous cold weather. They are carefully removed from the trellises, placed on a layer of spruce branches and covered with a large layer of foliage or sawdust.

Terms and rules of disembarkation

Planting seedlings can be carried out in spring and autumn, depending on the climate. In the Moscow region, landing time is the second half of May and the beginning of June. In the southern regions, the autumn period is preferable: summer heat is more harmful for only planted, taking root plants, and the absence of severe winter frosts will contribute to full rooting.

In the central zone of the country, cuttings are harvested in early June and kept cut in water until planting. It is optimal to plant them in a cold greenhouse, and if on the beds, then cover them from the top from the sun (with non-woven material, which is removed only in August). Usually half of the cuttings take root, which in the fall are removed to a cold cellar along with a clod of earth and stored in wet sawdust.

In order to achieve the best decorative effect, cuttings should be planted in groups of three with a distance of a meter between them in a permanent place to achieve the best decorative effect.

Landing pits are dug to a depth of 40 cm, 60 cm wide. The bottom is covered with a 10 cm layer of drainage, which is covered with soil.

The best seedlings of Chinese magnolia vine are two and three years old. They are already provided with a developed root system - fully prepared for planting. It is desirable to find a permanent place, for all the years of the plant's life: mature vines tolerate transplantation extremely poorly and almost do not take root in a new place.

Growing from seeds is a more time-consuming option and is used if there is no other way to propagate the plant. Seed material is harvested in autumn from the most ripe berries and stored until December in a regular paper bag in dryness. Then they are soaked for 3-4 days, replacing the water with fresh water every day, transferred to a nylon bag and placed in wet sand (it is advisable to pre-calcine it to minimize the risk of introducing bacteria). Store at a temperature of +5 °C (the vegetable compartment in the refrigerator or cellar is best suited). Twice a month they are taken out, aired and again placed in the sand, monitoring its moisture.

Two or two and a half months before planting, the seeds of Chinese schizander are transferred to a room with room temperature, and a month before they are provided with a temperature of +8 ° C. The sand must remain wet all this time. This period of stratification is quite troublesome, but this is where the complexity of planting seeds ends. Can be sown in a greenhouse or open beds. The planting substrate is a mixture of sand and peat in half. On its surface, grooves are shallowly carried out - by 2-2.5 cm, the seeds are laid out, sprinkled with the same mixture and watered. Planted in open soil, cover with a film on the arms. In the first year of life, they need only timely watering, they do not need fertilizers.

Features of care

In addition to the standard measures for growing Chinese magnolia vine and caring for it - watering, fertilizing, loosening - it requires supports. This helps the plant get more light, be ventilated, and in return give decorative lush foliage and fruit yields.

The easiest way is to install the trellis immediately when planting the cuttings. It is not necessary to spend money on factory ones - it is not difficult to make simple supports with your own hands. For the first year, small pegs are enough, but in the future, without a high support, the plant will not bear fruit, no matter how you take care of it. If Chinese magnolia vine is planted next to the wall of the house, an old ladder can be installed as a support for it in an inclined way.

The vine needs the first pruning after planting in two years. In autumn, after the end of leaf fall, 4-5 shoots are left, and the rest are cut off near the ground. If it was not possible to carry out pruning in the autumn, it is possible to remove the basal shoots in June, thus thinning the plant somewhat.

In winter and spring, pruning cannot be carried out, but as a sanitary cleaning it is permissible to remove old ineffective shoots, broken, dried vines, small branches that thicken the crown too much.

Watering and loosening

Young sprouts are watered regularly, making sure that the soil does not dry out, and avoiding water stagnation. In the homeland of the plant, the climate is characterized by high air humidity, so it will be grateful if it is sprayed with warm water in hot weather, and about 60 liters of water per stem (preferably not too cold) will be spent for irrigation. It is also customary to water the Chinese magnolia vine after feeding it.

The root system of the plant is located in the upper layers of the soil (up to 30 cm deep), so loosening is carried out superficially, no deeper than 5 cm.

top dressing

Manchurian lemongrass is fertilized twice in spring and once in summer and autumn:

• before flowering, in April, saltpeter (20-30 g) is poured around the trunk, covering it with a layer of leafy compost or humus;
• at the end of flowering and during the formation of ovaries, liquid organic matter is introduced at intervals of three to four weeks. At the same time, in order not to disturb the roots of the plant, the fertilizer is poured into the wells made with a crowbar;
• in the fall, after dropping leaves by a liana, 20-25 g of superphosphate are added under each trunk and the earth is carefully loosened, adding another 100-120 g of wood or straw ash under each plant.

Diseases and pests

Fragrant lemongrass is famous for its high immunity to diseases, and insect pests do not bother him, being scared away by the specific smell of foliage.

In extremely rare cases, Chinese schizander vines are affected by powdery mildew and spotting, Fusarium wilt. In the latter case, the plant cannot be saved, it is removed and the remains are burned. Problems with the first two diseases are solved by removing the affected leaves (they are also burned) and spraying the entire plant with Bordeaux 1% liquid.

Growing unpretentious Manchurian magnolia vine in the Russian middle lane and even in the Siberian region does not cause much trouble. At the same time, lush lianas braiding supports will enrich the landscape of any site, bloom it with bright green foliage and colorful flowers and berries.