Echinacea purpurea as honey plants specially sown for bees

 

Echinacea is a honey plant that is widely used in medicine and also as a fodder plant. Echinacea is also an ornamental plant that blooms beautifully and can be used for landscaping and decorating populated areas. Beekeepers should take a closer look at the honey plant Echinacea and include it more widely in the food supply of apiaries.

Content

• Honey plant Echinacea description
• How Echinacea blooms as a honey plant
• Echinacea as a honey plant
• Honey productivity of Echinacea
• Honey plant Echinacea as a forage plant
• Echinacea honey plant in landscape design
• How to grow echinacea

 

Honey plant Echinacea description

 

The honey plant Echinacea purpurea, Latin name Echincea purprea, is a medicinal and fodder plant. Echinacea plants, depending on the variety, are tall, their stem height ranges from 80 to 150 cm.

The honey plant Echinacea has a tap root with numerous thin roots.

The basal leaves of Echinacea are located on long petioles, green in color, large (17-30 by 8-15 cm), have five main protruding veins, they are hard, rough, oblong-ovate in shape with an extended apex, they form a large rosette. Stem leaves are sparse, smaller than basal leaves, oblong-ovate or lanceolate, sessile or almost sessile with three main veins. The foliage of the stems is strong. The stems of Echinacea are cylindrical in shape, ribbed, rough, glabrous or sparsely short-haired, light green in color with anthocyanin coloring on the lower part, simple and branched. Echinacea has 2-8 generative shoots. All shoots and branches end in inflorescences of different sizes or their buds.

Echinacea inflorescences are single baskets, large (10-15 cm), with a three-row wrapper of lanceolate green leaves. There are 15-20 marginal reed flowers in the inflorescence. The petals are narrow, 2.5-5.5 cm long, bent down and have a pink color in the mass, varying from crimson to dull pink. Numerous central tubular yellowish-purple flowers up to 5 mm in size are located on a receptacle, which becomes very convex from flat. In the first year of the growing season (the year of sowing), 3-5% of plants bloom, in the second year - 100% of plants. The period from the beginning of the growing season to the beginning of flowering of Echinacea is 75-90 days.

The flowering of Echinacea as a honey plant is long and lasts 60-75 days from July to October. The period from the beginning of the growing season in spring to harvest ripeness of seeds (September) is 150-160 days. The ligulate flowers are pistillate, sterile, and the middle tubular flowers are bisexual and fertile.

The fruits of Echinacea are brownish-gray, the achenes are tetrahedral, reverse-pyramidal in shape, narrowed at the base. Weight of 1000 Echinacea seeds is 4.5 g. Productivity of one Echinacea plant: seeds 8-25 g, above-ground mass - 220-350 g, roots - 45-60 g.

The honey plant Echinacea has high drought resistance and winter hardiness. Partial death of plants can occur if the soil is severely waterlogged before the onset of winter.

 

Echinacea honey plant is not picky about soils, but does not tolerate sandy soils; it grows well in fertile and well-cultivated soils with an alkaline reaction. Echinacea is a light-loving plant; it is not grown in the shade.

Echinacea honey plant is a perennial species. In the first year of life after sowing, seedlings appear in 10-20 days. Early germination is facilitated by the presence of moisture and heat in the soil and the absence of a soil surface crust. After another two weeks, intensive formation of a leaf rosette begins and in this phase most plants go into their first winter. When sown in spring, 3-5% of plants develop according to the spring type. The flowers of the Echinacea honey plant bloom in late August - September, but do not have time to form full-fledged seeds before the end of the growing season. In August, wintering buds begin to form on the rhizomes. Before going into winter, the height of the main tier of annual plants is 20-40 cm.

In the second and subsequent years of life, spring regrowth of plants is noted on April 12-20, stemming (appearance of generative stems) - May 20-30, budding - June 10-20, beginning of flowering - July 6-25, seed harvest ripeness - September 20-30 . Not intensive flowering of the Echinacea honey plant continues until the autumn frosts, which begin in late September - October. The seeds ripen only in the first inflorescences. They account for 25-30% of the total.

From the third year of life, 1/3-1/2 of the plants begin the process of particulation, and they are preserved by shoots from the lateral buds of the rhizome. New shoots on an aging root system turn out weaker and the honey plant Echinacea reduces productivity, the plants become less winter-hardy.

Echinacea plants as a honey plant remain viable for up to 6 years. The Echinacea field can be used longer if there are favorable conditions for germination and development of new plants after self-sowing.

 

 

How Echinacea blooms like a honey plant

In the honey plant Echinacea, the inflorescences on the plant bloom at different times. The tops bloom first ear baskets, at this time the lateral inflorescences of the lower tier are just developing. They bloom after the apical ones have faded. The average flowering time of Echinacea purpurea as a honey plant is 75 days, one flower is 30 days. The plant blooms in a basipetal order, flowers bloom within the basket in an acropetal order, from the outer circles to the inner ones in the first half of the day. The number of tubular flowers in an inflorescence depends on the age of the plants, on the location on the generative shoot and is 150–300 pieces. in the side and up to 540 pcs. in the apical baskets.

Echinacea as a honey plant

Echinacea, as a honey plant, is an excellent plant that is not inferior to lofant, fireweed, comfrey, snakehead, bruise, lungwort, and motherwort. The flowers are actively visited by bees, butterflies and other insects. The honey plant Echinacea purpurea is especially valuable because it blooms at the end of summer, when others have already bloomed and the bees are experiencing a lack of food. The flowering time of Echinacea in the second year of life is 2–2.5 months. Echinacea blooms starting in late June and continues to bloom until the end of September. When Echinacea blooms late - in July, it blooms until frost.

Honey productivity of Echinacea

How much honey can bees collect from Echinacea? The honey productivity of Echinacea can vary from 60 to 130 kg of honey per 1 ha. Echinacea flowers secrete nectar abundantly, the largest amount of nectar is released during the period of mass flowering, the flowers secrete the smallest amount of nectar at the beginning of flowering.

Honey plant Echinacea as a forage plant

Honey plant Echinacea is grown to feed livestock and poultry; it is believed that food made from it has a healing effect. The green mass of Echinacea purpurea, when added to feed, has a beneficial effect on the growth of young cattle and pigs. The feed additive compensates for the lack of biologically active compounds (essential amino acids, vitamins, microelements) necessary for the course of normal physiological processes. However, the main mechanism of its action is due to a unique set of antioxidants that directly or indirectly stimulate the antioxidant protection of tissues: a complex of unsaturated fatty acids, high selenium content, which enhances the effect of reproductive organs, zinc, ascorbic and caffeic acids. At the same time, addiction to echinacea does not occur, as well as overexcitation and fatigue of the body from stimulation.

The yield of Echinacea green mass is 30–35 t/ha, and every year the yield of green mass grows and in the 3rd year reaches 90 tons, dry grass — 10–13 t/ha, dry roots — 2.2 t/ha, seeds with 2-3-year-old plantations - from 2.5 to 4.2 c/ha.

 

Echinacea honey plant in landscape design

The honey plant Echinacea purpurea can be widely used in landscape design. Echinacea is attractive in small arrangements and works well in borders. The decorative value of the Echinacea honey plant is enhanced by the duration of flowering of both the plant and each inflorescence on it, which can last up to 30 days. For the purposes of landscape design, many varieties of Echinacea have been bred, the flowers of which are very different in plant habit and, most importantly, inflorescences; they are different in size and shape; by the ratio of tongueless, short and long tongued flowers in them, by the color and shape of the petals.

 

How to Grow Echinacea

 

In the honey plant Echinacea, the quality of the seeds depends on the place of their development on the mother plant. A large number of achenes are formed in inflorescences of early stages of formation, the seeds of which are characterized by high germination and completion (in general, this figure ranges from 44 to 80%).

Echinacea purpurea grows well on light and medium-textured soils, provided with nutrients, with a slightly acidic or close to neutral reaction environment (pH 5.5–6.0). The best predecessors for its cultivation are clean and occupied fallows, legumes, vetch-pea-oat mixture. When sowing after grain, it is recommended to use conventional tillage, stubble peeling to a depth of 8–12 cm and plowing with moldboard plows to a depth of 25–27 cm. In spring, moisture is covered with harrowing.

Echinacea honey plant reproduces well by seeds. The best sowing time is April. The seeding rate is 12 kg/ha, the seeding depth is 2–3 cm, the row spacing is 45–60 cm. Shoots appear on the 15–30th day after sowing, develop slowly, and are easily drowned out by weeds. In the first year of vegetation, Echinacea forms a rosette consisting of 7–12 leaves; after wintering, leafy shoots appear on the plant. At the end of June it enters the flowering phase.

When using a wide-row sowing method (45–60 cm), inter-row cultivation is required.

The honey plant Echinacea purpurea is very responsive to fertilization. When sowing, superphosphate is applied at a dose of 20–30 kg/ha. In the second year of life, the plant is fed during the growth phase.

Grass is harvested for raw materials in the second year of life during the mass flowering phase (July). The collected mass is dried at a temperature of 40–50°C. Rhizomes and roots are harvested at the end of September - beginning of October, and the above-ground mass is mowed before harvesting.

For growing honey plant Echinacea for seed purposes, you can select areas from general production crops or plant them specifically. Echinacea achenes are harvested starting from the second year of the growing season. They ripen unevenly. Harvesting begins when the achenes in the central and side baskets of the second order acquire a dark brown color, and their tuft is easily separated. The seed plants are harvested at the end of September - mid-October manually, tearing off the baskets, putting them in bags, or with a grain combine. To separate the tufts, the threshed heap is passed through a clover grinder.