Key Points and Detailed Methods of Chestnut Tree Pruning Techniques
People cut their hair to improve their appearance, not only to look good for others, but also to give themselves a pleasant aesthetic experience when looking in the mirror. In terms of aesthetics, pruning the branches and leaves of flowers and plants serves a similar purpose. However, pruning fruit trees, besides achieving a beautifying effect, is essentially a matter of rational nutrient allocation.
Chestnut Tree Pruning Techniques
1. Heading back: Cutting off part of a one-year-old branch. Heading back can promote branching, enhance tree vigor, make the canopy more compact, reduce male flowers, and adjust the distribution of nutrients. For vigorous trees and vigorous branches, delayed pruning can be adopted, waiting until after bud break to perform heading back.
2. Thinning back: This is heading back a perennial branch. It is mostly used for perennial branches that are weak in growth, whose fruiting parts have moved outward, and whose inner canopy is severely bare.
3. Thinning out: Removing competing branches, shade-casting branches, and slender branches in the inner canopy from the base.
4. Cap pruning: Performing winter heading back near the node scars of new shoots that have been pinched back a different number of times. Leaving 2-4 small buds on the node scar of a new shoot and heading back is called live-cap pruning. If done properly, the small buds on the cap and the large buds below the node scar can both produce fruiting branches. Heading back on the node scar of a new shoot without leaving any buds is called dead-cap pruning, which causes the large buds below the node scar to produce fruiting branches. Generally, branches with weak vigor are given dead-cap pruning, while branches with strong vigor are given live-cap pruning.
5. Leaving unpruned: Leaving unpruned means not pruning. Its main function is to disperse nutrients and moderate tree vigor. Vigorous trees are mostly pruned by leaving branches unpruned.
6. Branch bending and scoring: For vigorous auxiliary branches in the canopy that have not been pinched back, during the period from spring sap flow to bud break, bend them flat and score above each bud at the positions where sprouting is desired, so that they produce vigorous branches. At winter pruning, then thin back the unpruned, bent-flat branches to the position where the vigorous branches were produced.
7. Pinching back: When a new shoot grows to 30 cm, remove the tip of the new shoot. This is mainly used on vigorous branches, with the purpose of promoting branching and advancing fruiting. Pinch back 2-3 times each year. For newly fruiting trees, the new shoots of fruiting branches are long and vigorous. After the pre-fruit shoot grows out, leave 3-5 buds and pinch back. After pinching back the pre-fruit shoot, about 3 robust branches can be formed, increasing the proportion of fruiting branches produced, and at the same time slowing the outward movement of the fruiting parts.
8. Removing male flowers: Leave only a few male inflorescences on the branch and remove the rest. Its main function is to regulate nutrients, promote female flower formation, and increase fruit set capacity.
Chestnut Tree Planting Techniques
1. Site selection: A chestnut orchard should be established on sandy loam with a relatively low groundwater table and good drainage. Avoid planting in places with saline-alkaline soil, low wet areas prone to waterlogging, or strong winds. When opening up a chestnut orchard on hilly and mound land, choose gentle terrain and near-mountain areas with thicker soil layers.
2. Variety selection: For chestnut, local improved varieties should be the main planted varieties, such as Paoche No. 2, Chenguo No. 1, etc., with appropriate introduction of varieties such as Shifeng, Jinfeng, Haifeng, Qingmao Ruanci, and Chushu Hong, while also achieving a reasonable combination of early, mid-, and late varieties.
3. Configure pollinizer trees: Chestnut trees mainly rely on wind to spread pollen, but because chestnut trees have the phenomena of dichogamy and self-fruiting, a single variety often produces empty burrs due to poor pollination, so newly built chestnut orchards must be configured with 10% pollinizer trees.
4. Reasonable close planting: Reasonable close planting of chestnut trees is a basic measure to increase yield per unit area. For plain chestnut orchards, 30-40 trees per mu is suitable, and for mountain chestnut orchards, 40-60 trees per mu is suitable. For planned close-planted chestnut orchards, 60-111 trees per mu can be planted, followed by gradual alternate-row and alternate-tree thinning.
How Many Years Until Chestnut Planting Bears Fruit
Grafted chestnut trees begin to bear fruit in 2-3 years, while seedling chestnut trees bear fruit in 5-8 years. After about 20 years, chestnut trees enter the full fruiting period. Chestnut has a cultivation history of at least more than 2,500 years in our country. It has strong adaptability, wide distribution, is easy to cultivate, and has high yield. It can be grown economically on mountains, sandy beaches, and other sites. It prefers light. It can be cultivated within a soil pH of 4.5-7.5, with an annual average temperature above 10°C, a growing-season average temperature of 16-20°C, and a winter minimum temperature of minus 25°C.
Harvesting Methods for Chestnuts
There are two harvesting methods for chestnuts, namely the chestnut-picking method and the chestnut-beating method. The chestnut-picking method is to wait until the chestnuts are fully ripe and fall naturally, then manually pick up the chestnut fruits. To make it easier to pick up chestnuts, clear the ground weeds before the chestnut burrs split open. When harvesting, first shake the tree body, then pick up all the fallen chestnut fruits and chestnut burrs cleanly. Be sure to persist in picking once in the morning and once in the evening every day, and store them as they are picked. The advantage of the chestnut-picking method is that the chestnut fruits are plump and full, the yield is high, the quality is good, and storability is strong. The chestnut-beating method is to lightly beat down mature chestnut burrs in batches and at intervals with a bamboo pole, then pick up the chestnut burrs and chestnut fruits cleanly. When harvesting by this method, generally beat once every 2-3 days. When beating burrs, strike the small branches from the outer part of the canopy inward to shake down the chestnut burrs, so as to avoid damaging the branches and leaves. It is strictly forbidden to beat down all chestnut burrs of different maturity at one time. Chestnut burrs harvested by beating should be given a "sweating" treatment as soon as possible, because at that time the temperature is relatively high, the chestnut fruits have high water content, and respiration intensity is high, generating a large amount of heat. If not handled in time, the chestnut fruits are prone to mold and rot. The treatment method is to choose a shady, cool, and ventilated place, spread the chestnut burrs thinly, with a thickness of 20-30 cm as suitable, splash water and turn them every day, and after 2-3 days of cooling and "sweating" treatment, carry out manual shelling.
Successfully planted chestnut trees, through continuous pruning, enhance tree vigor, provide more nutrients to strong branches and female flowers, and can bear satisfactory chestnut fruit. After chestnuts mature, they need to be harvested and stored in a reasonable way, so that the edible period of chestnuts can be extended without damaging the chestnut fruit.