How many years does it take for a Meizao cherry to bear fruit after planting?
Meizao cherry is a variety of cherry, cultivated in Hebei Province and other places in China. So how many years after planting does it bear fruit?
1. How many years does it take for a Meizao cherry to bear fruit after planting?
Meizao cherries generally bear fruit three years after planting, reach full production in five years, and their flower buds swell in late March; full bloom occurs in mid-April; and they ripen in June. The fruit is broad heart-shaped, uniform in size, slightly flat at the tip, with the skin entirely purplish red, glossy, bright and attractive, and turning purple when fully ripe.
2. How do you plant Meizao cherries?
1. Choosing a site and building an orchard
Choose a suitable site to build the orchard, selecting a sheltered, sunny spot with gentle terrain and good soil, fertilizer and water conditions; valleys, basins and low-lying land should be avoided.
2. Propagation
Grafting is the main method, using cherry seedlings, wild cherry (Prunus pseudocerasus), ornamental cherry and so on as rootstock, and good cherry varieties as scion, carried out before bud break in spring. After grafting is complete, move the plant to a spot with plenty of sunlight. Watering should alternate between dry and moist periods.
3. Fertilizing
The fertilizing period is after new shoots stop growing, during the rapid root growth stage; in Yantai, this is generally in September-October. Fertilizer amounts are: about 5000kg of cow manure per mu; 1000kg of fermented commercial chicken manure per mu; 8-10kg of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium compound fertilizer (15-15-15) for every 100kg of fruit produced; 100-200kg/mu of silicon-calcium-magnesium or silicon-calcium-potassium-magnesium fertilizer; for diseased and weak trees, drench the roots with 50 times diluted fish peptide extract, 10-15kg of diluted solution per tree.
For young trees, apply in radial furrows; for large trees, dig furrows along the row direction within the canopy projection and apply there. To reduce labor costs, it can be broadcast on the ground surface and rotary-tilled to a depth of 10-20cm.
4. Watering
Irrigation starts from the second year after planting the cherry trees; in normal years, irrigation is generally done 6-7 times a year, respectively before bud break, after petal fall, during the rapid fruit enlargement stage (2 times), during the September-October dry period, and before the soil freezes. Before the rainy season, dig drainage ditches in the orchard to ensure that rainwater flows freely during the flood season and can be drained out of the orchard in time.
5. Management
When planting, since cherry trees grow fairly large, enough space must be left for them; choose a sufficiently large space with fertile soil and good air permeability. The environmental requirement is to plant in the north, choosing a place with little rain when the cherries ripen.