When buckwheat blooms: description and types, honey plant productivity, benefits

Buckwheat is a genus of plants from the family of the same name, consisting of 26 species. It comes from the southwest of China, from where it spread throughout Asia and Europe more than 5 thousand years ago. Beekeepers are especially interested when buckwheat used as a honey plant blooms, because the honey obtained from such fields has a characteristic taste, appearance and high quality, which allows it to be used not only as a tasty product, but also as a substance with healing properties.

Description of culture

Buckwheat is an annual or perennial plant with a height of 10 to 100 centimeters.It has bare, straight, branched stems with alternately planted arrow-shaped leaves. Buckwheat has bisexual flowers, painted in pinkish-white, greenish or cream color. The fruits are trihedral nuts up to 6 millimeters long.

Buckwheat is a valuable supplier of cereals, which is traditionally used in Russia and most countries of the former Soviet Union, although culture reached these lands relatively late - during the Tatar-Mongol invasion. Its Russian name - buckwheat - a plant and cereals from it got because of the Byzantine or Greek way of getting into the territory of Russia.

Now buckwheat is actively used not only as a cereal crop, but also as a honey plant, which gives valuable and especially tasty honey, which stands out from all other varieties of bee honey. Buckwheat itself, its grain - buckwheat - is distinguished by a rich mineral composition, as well as the presence of B, PP, E vitamins, various organic acids, easily digestible proteins, starch, sugar, oil, and so on.

Types of buckwheat

There are many varieties of buckwheat, but the most common and popular are two types: sowing, or ordinary, and Tatar.

Sowing

This type of buckwheat is also called edible or groats, since it is from it that the well-known buckwheat is obtained. This is a grain and honey plant, introduced into culture long ago and distributed throughout the Asian and European territories. It is sown as a honey plant on light sandy loamy soils. When it blooms, the bees gather a bountiful harvest of nectar and greenish-yellow pollen.

Harvesting takes place late due to the fact that buckwheat fruits ripen unevenly, in late August-September. Buckwheat is used to create various dishes in many countries, but nowhere has it reached such popularity as in the former USSR.

Tatar

Tatar buckwheat, kyrlyk, wild grouse - an annual plant, wild, common as a weed in buckwheat or grain crops. A heat-loving and moisture-loving plant, it quickly dies with slight frosts. Prefers nutritious, well-fed and moist soils, does not tolerate drought.

Tatar buckwheat is widespread in East Asian countries - in China, Japan, India and so on. On the territory of Russia, it grows in the European part, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Far East. As a honey plant, it is an object of attention only if it grows in large areas. It gives "wild" buckwheat honey, which can be considered as healing, as it is most often mined in ecologically clean places away from any production and mass resettlement of people.

Features of cultivation

All representatives of the genus are characterized by increased moisture-loving and demanding on the composition and permeability of soils. Buckwheat grows best on light, but nutritious, sandy loamy soils that are permeable to moisture, but do not create stagnant precipitation. It is a late maturing crop, so rains and early frosts can interfere with harvest.

Cultivation plantings are susceptible to attack by pests and also suffer from a number of fungal diseases, but voles do not live in buckwheat fields, as they cannot feed on the shoots of the plant due to the content of poisonous coumarin compounds in them.

buckwheat honey productivity

The amount of honey obtained from buckwheat crops depends entirely on two main conditions:

1. Good weather.
2. Presence of active summer bees.

These two conditions are interconnected. In wet weather, bees fly little, only in the absence of rain or fog. If the wet period falls on the active flowering of the crop, then the bees will not be able to collect a lot of nectar and pollen, and there will be a crop failure for buckwheat honey.

In a harvest year, up to 80 kilograms of honey can be harvested per hectare of a profusely flowering field. However, in drought and heat, bees also fly poorly, so the level of collection of buckwheat honey is never constant.

Buckwheat honey

This variety of bee honey differs from its other varieties in a number of ways. It has a rich reddish-brown, dark shade, a pronounced aroma and a specific spicy taste. While such honey is fresh, it is liquid and dark, as it is stored, it thickens and brightens.

Buckwheat honey contains dozens of proteins, minerals and iron in it more than in other varieties. Due to these qualities, it is actively used for the treatment and prevention of colds, inflammation in the oral cavity, and also as an antiseptic. Honey can be used for cosmetic purposes, for the treatment of skin diseases, healing of minor wounds, scratches, rashes, including festering ones. Honey applications will also help heal long-lasting trophic ulcers.

The period and duration of flowering for honey collection

Buckwheat blooms for a month - 40 days in the middle of summer. The flowering period depends on weather conditions and the area where the plant is grown. In central Russia, this time falls on the middle - the end of June.

In order to serve a hectare of crops, you will need to place at least 3-4 bee colonies in the immediate vicinity.The hives should be located at the maximum distance from each other to reduce competition between bee colonies. Experienced beekeepers who grow buckwheat specifically for honey, sow it twice with an interval of 2 weeks. This allows you to extend the flowering process and increase the production of a valuable product.

Useful properties

Besides the fact that buckwheat is an excellent honey plant, it gives a wonderful and he althy product - buckwheat. It comes in several varieties, of which the core is valued - whole grain cereals, as well as green, or non-roasted buckwheat.

This product has a high nutritional value and is low in calories, which makes it suitable for diets for people who want to lose weight. Nutrient, taste and useful characteristics make buckwheat an excellent dietary dish, which is used even to feed the sick and debilitated people.

This is due not only to the composition of buckwheat, but also to its easy and quick absorption by the body. Porridge and other dishes do not irritate the digestive organs, are quickly digested and saturate the body with proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins.

Buckwheat is used not only for cereals, but also suitable for creating various dishes - soups, side dishes, fillers for cutlets, zrazy, meatballs, stuffing and minced meat for poultry, as well as in the form of flour for pancakes, fritters, Japanese soba noodles. Buckwheat flour does not contain gluten, so it can be used to feed people with celiac disease - gluten intolerance.

However, be aware that due to the lack of gluten, buckwheat flour does not rise, so it is combined with wheat flour to make pancakes or Japanese noodles.

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