How to Grow Loquats for High Quality and High Yield? A Detailed Guide to Growing Techniques

The loquat is the earliest fruit variety to ripen during the year. High-quality loquats have large fruit, few seeds, bright orange-red skin, soft and juicy flesh, a balanced sweet-and-sour taste, a unique flavor, and rich nutrition, with effects such as clearing heat, moistening the lungs, relieving cough, and strengthening the stomach. In recent years, high-quality loquats have quietly entered the high-end fruit market, not only selling at a high price but also enjoying strong demand. Growing loquats has broad market prospects. To achieve high quality and high yield when growing loquats, pay attention to the following points:

1. Reasonable close planting: Choose red, yellow, or loamy soil with deep soil layers, good drainage, and high humus content. The required spacing between plants and rows is 4×5 m, with 30--40 plants per mu.

2. Dig planting holes deeply: About 1 m wide and 0.8 m deep, or blast the bottom layer and then dig it open.

3. Apply heavy base fertilizer: Fill each hole with 0.5--0.75 kg of lime, 1--1.5 kg of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate fertilizer. 1 kg of compound fertilizer, and 20--30 kg of decomposed manure. It is best to fill in three layers, coarse at the bottom and fine at the top, and build a mound 35--40 cm above the ground.

4. Scientific topdressing: Within 3 years after the loquat seedlings are planted, it is the young tree nurturing period, mainly focused on vegetative growth to expand the canopy. In fertilization, achieve “light fertilizer applied frequently, promote early and control later.” Each year, before and after the spring shoots, summer shoots, and autumn shoots emerge, apply one shoot-promoting fertilizer and one shoot-strengthening fertilizer each time. Each time, apply 5--10 kg of decomposed human, livestock, and poultry water fertilizer per plant, mixed with 50--100 g of urea. Fertilization for adult fruiting trees: generally divided into 3--4 applications. From January to February, after flowering and during the young fruit stage, quick-acting potassium and phosphorus are mainly used; from May to June, apply heavy fertilizer after fruit harvest, applying 30--40 kg of decomposed human, livestock, and poultry water fertilizer per plant in deep holes, mixed with 1--2 kg of pond cake (cake) fertilizer and 1 kg of superphosphate, to restore tree vigor and promote the emergence of summer shoots. Apply flower-before fertilizer and fruit fertilizer in a timely manner.

5. Shaping and pruning: After the loquat is planted, cut the top of the main trunk about 50 cm above the ground to set the trunk. When buds sprout in spring, select and retain 1 strong upward-growing bud and 4--5 side buds in different directions, and train them into a central trunk and several main branches. Use methods such as pulling, propping, and hanging to open the angle of the main branches so that they grow obliquely (or horizontally), forming the first tier of branches. Follow this method to cultivate the second and third tiers of branches, remove the top of the central trunk above the third tier to open the center, and control the canopy height at about 3 m. For a loquat orchard after fruiting, summer pruning can be carried out from May to June after fruit harvest, or pruning can be done before bud break in early spring. The main task is to remove overly dense branches, dead branches, pest- and disease-damaged branches, and water sprouts, so as to improve ventilation and light penetration and concentrate nutrients.