Buckwheat · Tongchuanshi, Shaanxi, China
When to plant buckwheat in Tongchuanshi
Main outdoor window
2-16 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
26 March
In Tongchuanshi, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
11 Jun - 1 Jul
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Tongchuanshi
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow direct
2-16 Apr
One week after your last frost.
Harvest
11 Jun - 1 Jul
Buckwheat through the year
Against the frost risk in Tongchuanshi
Why these dates
Sow after the last frost, any time up to about eleven weeks before the first. Because it matures so fast it can follow an early crop and still finish, and it smothers weeds while doing so.
Killed outright by the lightest frost, which is exactly why it works as a summer cover crop that clears itself away in autumn.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Buckwheat are timed for direct sowing 1 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Tongchuanshi.
The median frost-free season here is 226 days, against 70 to 90 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Tongchuanshi
Other grains to time
Growing buckwheat in Tongchuanshi
When should I plant buckwheat in Tongchuanshi?
Aim for 2-16 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 20 Apr - 4 May - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will buckwheat be ready to harvest in Tongchuanshi?
Expect to start picking around 11 Jun - 1 Jul, based on 70 to 90 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will buckwheat tolerate?
Killed outright by the lightest frost, which is exactly why it works as a summer cover crop that clears itself away in autumn.