User talk:Baumanph/sandbox

Climate and growing cycle length
The growing cycle length varies over cultivation locations of chia and is influenced by elevation. For production sites located in different ecosystems in Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador growing cycle lengths between 100 days and 150 days are observed. Thereby, the commercial production fields are located in the range of 8 meters and 2200 metres altitude across a varity of ecosystems ranging from tropical coastal desert to tropical rain forest and inter-Andean dry valley. In North Western Argentina a time span from planting to harvest of between 120 and 180 days is reported for fields located between around 900 and 1500 metres above sea level.

S. hispanica is a short-day flowering plant. Photoperiodic sensitivity and the lack of photoperiodic variability in traditional cultivars has limited chia seed production potential to tropical and subtropical latitudes until recently. Traditional domesticated lines of S. hispanica can be grown in temporal zones at higher latitudes in the United States. In places such as Arizona or Kentucky seed maturation of traditional chia cultivars is stopped by frost before or after flower set and seed harvesting is not possible However, recent advances in breeding led to the the development of new early flowering chia genotypes by researches of the University of Kentucky, which are now sucessfully grown in temperate areas of the United States.

Soil requirements
The cultivation of S. hispanica requires light to medium clay, and sandy soils. The plant is preferably grown in well-drained and moderately fertile soils. Chia can cope with acid soils and moderate drought. Sown chia seeds need moisture for seedling establishment, while the chia plant doesn't tolerate wet soils during growth. Chia is cultivated under a wide range of soil types such as cambisols, regosols, planosols, calcaric rhegosols, and entisols.

Seedbed requirements and sowing
Traditional cultivation techniques of S. hispanica involves soil preparation by disruption and loosening of soil and broadcasting chia seeds. In modern commercial chia production a typical seeding rate of 6 kg/ha and a row spacing ranging from 0.7 metres to 0.8 metres is usually applied in fields.

Fertilization
S. hispanica can be cultivated under low fertilizer input. In some areas up to 100 kg nitrogen per hectare are applied, in other farms no additional fertilizer is used.

Irrigation
The irrigation frequency in chia production fields can vary between none and eight irrigations per growing season. The watering regime depends on the climatic conditions and on the average annual rainfall. In Northwestern Argentina none to three irrigations are usually applied under conditions of approximately 200 millimeters of rainfall received during the growing season.

Pesticide application
Essential oils in chia leaves possess repellant properties against insects. Therefore Chia is considered to be well-suited for organic production without the use of synthetic pesticides.