What is the significance of film mulching cultivation of ginger? What are the specific methods?

Ginger is a thermophilic crop, and the ground temperature in Shandong ginger producing area in early May can meet the temperature requirements for its germination. Ginger is not frost tolerant and needs to be harvested before the first frost, which often limits the further improvement of its yield because of its short growth period. Therefore, Yu Xianchang et al. (1994) used plastic film mulching, sowing 30 days and 15 days earlier than the normal sowing date, and observed its growth and yield. The specific method of film mulching is: firstly, ditch with a ditch spacing of 50 cm and a ditch depth of 25 cm, then sow with bottom water at a plant spacing of 19 cm, and cover the soil with a thickness of 4 cm after sowing. Finally, cover the ridges on both sides of the ditch with mulch film with a width of 1.20cm, borrow soil and compact the mulch film, so that the distance between the bottom of the ditch and the upper film is kept at about 1.5cm, and 1 mulch film can cover two rows. After the emergence of seedlings in Jiang Miao, the plastic film was removed when the upper end of seedlings came into contact with the plastic film. Other cultivation management measures are carried out according to the routine. The results showed that plastic film mulching increased the ground temperature and advanced the sowing date, which was 8 ~ 19 days earlier than that of conventional open sowing (without plastic film mulching), thus prolonging the growth period of ginger, making the assimilating organs grow ahead of time, which showed that the plant height and stem diameter increased, the number of branches per plant increased, the leaf area per plant increased and the yield increased significantly (Table 26).

Table 26 Effect of Plastic Film Mulching on Growth and Yield of Ginger

As can be seen from Table 24, using plastic film mulching and sowing 30 days in advance has a good yield increase effect, which is more than 20% higher than that of the control. Spraying herbicide 1 time after sowing and then covering with plastic film can save the trouble of weeding, reduce the application times of herbicide and achieve better results. As a new technology, plastic film mulching is applied to ginger production, which can not only sow early and prolong the growth period, but also increase temperature and moisture, promote plant growth, increase yield, inhibit weed growth and reduce intertillage times, thus saving labor and reducing costs.