Detailed Explanation of Artificial Breeding Techniques for Schisandra chinensis Cultivation

The special medical and health-care effects of the Chinese medicinal herb Schisandra chinensis are increasingly favored by people. However, the breeding and seedling cultivation of Schisandra chinensis is a difficult problem. The Schisandra chinensis improved variety breeding base in Kuandian County, Liaoning Province, used wild Schisandra chinensis to cultivate excellent new varieties of Schisandra chinensis. Its method is:

First, based on the rule that hybridization (inbreeding) between excellent varieties (lines) of fruit trees such as grapes and pears tends to produce “transgressive segregation” in the progeny, variety selection, purification, domestication and improvement were carried out on wild Schisandra chinensis.

The main method is: select an area of wild Schisandra chinensis on the mountain, and when the fruit matures, choose plants with long, neat fruit clusters, large, compact and uniform berries, and excellent comprehensive traits as breeding parents to retain, while completely removing all other inferior plants. In the flowering period of the following year, measures such as cross-plant (flower) pollination and reciprocal repeated pollination are implemented on the retained parent trees to breed excellent seeds.

The second step is to grow the obtained seeds into seedlings in open flat ground and then directly plant them in flat ground, carrying out open-air cultivation and domestication under full-light conditions so that they gradually adapt to a high-temperature and dry environment. After these trees bear fruit, collect their seeds again to raise seedlings for use in building large-scale new commercial orchards. The excellent varieties cultivated by this method have significantly enhanced stress resistance, do not wilt even under high-temperature and dry weather, and grow normally even without rain for half a month.

Third, pay attention to pruning. While planting the young seedlings, cut off the main trunk at a low position to force the seedlings to sprout 3-4 main vines from the base as soon as possible. After that, based on the principle of combining “long pruning” with “short cutting&rdquo, prune as lightly as possible so that the branches and vines quickly cover the trellis surface, expand the fruiting branch groups, and lower the fruiting position.

In addition to the above three key measures, auxiliary measures such as appropriate close planting, covering the tree with grass, applying boron at the flowering stage, and artificial pollination have achieved very obvious results. It is estimated that the yield of a 5-year-old fruiting orchard is 225 kg per mu, and the yield of 6-7-year-old orchards stabilizes at 240 kg per mu, which is 3-4 times higher than that of wild varieties that have not undergone selection and improvement.