How Maca is Cultivated

Preparation Of The Land Is Very Important:
Is carried out in the months of March and April. It begins with cleaning the over grown areas and removing stones in order to turn over the ground. It is fertilized with sheep or camelidaes manure. In the preparation of the land field, it is possible to make plows of disks, yokes of oxen (animal traction) r the use of chaquitaclla (tool used in Peru).

Sowing Time:
Is performed in the months of September to November. It is mixed first, the botany seed with ground or guano to get a better distribution when you broadcast the seed. The covering of the seed is carried out with branches or by raking superficially for the land field to get the appropriate depth of sown field. Another way is the passing of a flock of sheep.

The cultivation is intensive in manpower, to make works like care and weed of overgrowths. The maca is sowed in monoculture or in strips of lands with bitter potatoes; this association is generally made for the peasants to protect the cultivation of the potato of the attack of insects, since it is believed that the maca possesses products repellent volatile of insects, being used like an ecological control.

The lands field cultivated with maca should rest at least 3 to 5 years, because there is a generalized idea between the peasants that the maca depletes the nutrients of the ground, and since it has been proved by researches done by the peasants, the conclusion is that maca is a plant that extracts the nutrients of the ground strongly.

Weeding:
Once emerge the plants, it will be tried to eliminate carefully the mixtures, as many times as necessary. (generally 2 times).

Avoiding Overgrowing:
The density of the culture will be given proportionally to the degree of humidity and fertility of the ground, evidence of the rains in the period of germination in the first stage of growth, having to remove some plants if the cultivation has gotten grow very dense.

Elimination Of The Foliage:
When the foliage begins its yellowish it is maturation sign, many farmers opt to shepherd the sheep in these areas, disappearing all the foliage. Naturally, this practice allows to accelerate the process of
maturation of the roots.

Harvesting:
After a lapse of 8 to 10 months from the sowing, one proceeds to this work carrying out it carefully since the roots should not wither and
it is necessary to try to gather all of them.

Drying The Roots:
Later on to the harvest, the roots are exposed to the sunbeam continuously and approximately for one month and if it is in shade (in a garden shed),it is necessary to triplicate or even to quintuple the lapse, avoiding the exposure to the freezes, because if it happened the product would degenerate, taking the corklike appearance and not being able to be cooked. To obtain one kilo of dry product, it is required from 4 to 5 kilos of fresh maca, being determined the very best drying when biting the maca strongly, there is not any imprint of the teeth in the maca.

Conservation:
Once drying, its conservation in the granaries or barns result to be practical. They could be stored by several years without any deterioration. It is convenient to prevent the attack of weevils in the warehouse, happening it generally when they are stored in sheltered areas.

How Much Yield:
The yield for cultivated hectare is about 5 Tm of fresh product approximately, or about 1.5 Tm of dry product.

Obtaining The Botanical Seed:
For the propagation with sexual seed, it is necessary to carry out the following activities.

Selection Of The Best Roots:
After the harvest, the bigger and developed roots are selected, roots of a good
constitution and maturity.

Construction Of The Well And Planting:
It is necessary to dig out about 50 or 60 cm of depth where rallies are placed orderly in lines, then they are covered with humid ground or manure, after 3O to 45 days it is observed that the offspring have sprouted.

Transplanting:
The small plants with their respective roots are sowed in the land field well prepared from 40 to 50 cm of distance between plants, then they require to be watered quickly every week until they flower and give us the seed. This occurs in the 6th or 7th month.

Gathering Of The Seed:
After the seed has matured, it is time to pick it up and then to dry off the leaves
and shafts, later the seed is thrashed and blew to obtain seeds of good quality and very clean.

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