Parsnip

Pasternip (Latin: Pastinaca) is a vegetable crop; a biennial or perennial plant in the Apiaceae family. In the wild, parsnips grow in shrub thickets, mountain and valley meadows in Turkey, Europe, the Caucasus, European Russia, and Western Siberia.

Currently, they are cultivated throughout the world. Other names include pustnarnak, popovnik, field borscht, stol”ye, kozelki, and white root. Parsnips are widely used in cooking, including in winter soups and various salads.

Crop Characteristics

Pasternip is a herbaceous plant with a fleshy root. The stem is erect, acutely ribbed or striated, rough, and pubescent over its entire surface, highly branched in the upper part, reaching 30-200 cm in height. The leaves are odd-pinnate, consisting of 2-7 lobed or coarsely serrated, ovate, sessile, and pubescent leaflets. The lower leaves are borne on short petioles, while the upper leaves are sessile with a sheathed base.

The flowers are small, regular, pentamerous, and collected in umbels consisting of 5-15 rays. The involucre is absent. The calyx is inconspicuous. The corolla is bright yellow. The fruit is a flat-compressed pendulous carpel, round-elliptical in shape and yellowish-brownish in color. The root vegetable is white, has a pleasant aroma and sweet taste, and can be a wide variety of colors (from round to conical). Flowering occurs in July-August. The fruits ripen in September.

Growing Conditions

Parsnip is a cold-hardy crop; the seeds germinate at temperatures of 2-3°C (45-3°F). Seedlings can withstand frosts down t o-5°C (22°F), and mature plants can withstand frosts down t o-8°C (13°F). The optimal temperature for normal growth and development is 15-20°C (59-68°F). Parsnip requires full sunlight and does not respond well to shade. Crowded plantings, especially in the initial stages, negatively impact growth.

Parsnip is relatively drought-resistant, but requires ample watering during germination and emergence. Sudden changes in weather conditions negatively impact the quality of the future harvest. Parsnips prefer loose, light, loamy or sandy loam soils with a high humus content and a neutral pH. Clay, heavy loam, structureless, and acidic soils are not recommended. Ideal pre-crops for parsnips include cucumbers, onions, potatoes, and cabbage.

Soil Preparation and Sowing

The area for growing parsnips is prepared in the fall. The soil is dug up and rotted manure or humus is added. A week before planting, the ridges are carefully loosened with a rake, fed with superphosphate, potassium sulfate, sodium nitrate and wood ash.

Before sowing, the seeds are soaked in an ash solution (20 g of ash per liter of water) for 48 hours, after which they are washed and dried. The seeding depth is 3-4 cm. The distance between rows should be 20-22 cm. To speed up the emergence of seedlings, the bed with crops is covered with plastic film.

Care

When 2 true leaves appear at the seedlings, the parsnips are thinned out. The distance between plants should be approximately 5-6 cm. The main care of the crop consists of frequent loosening, weeding and rare watering. It should be remembered: water should not stagnate in the soil, this will have a detrimental effect on the quality of root crops. After thinning, the plants are fed with urea, and after 20-25 days with azofoska.

Parsnips also need preventative treatments and pest and disease control. Quite often the plant is affected by septoria. The disease manifests itself in the form of brown or gray spots on the leaves, as a result of which they dry out and the umbrellas become weak. To combat septoria, plants are sprayed with a 0. 1% solution of foundationazole. The most dangerous thing for parsnips, or rather for its root crops, is the root aphid. The main symptoms are curling of the leaves and the general appearance of the plants. To combat pests, loosening with the addition of ground pepper to the soil or treatment with heptenophos is effective.

Harvest and storage

Parsnips are harvested in September — October. It is recommended to use species for digging. After digging, the leaves are cut off, and the roots are cleared of soil, dried and placed in boxes filled with sand. Store parsnips at a temperature of 1-3C. Parsnips can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than a month, then they lose their original shape. Several specimens are left directly in the soil under cover, and in the spring they are dug up and eaten.

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