Management Methods for Winter Jujube Seedlings During the Dormant Period, Plus Tips to Increase Fruit Set Rate

Every autumn and winter season, plenty of people eat winter jujubes, and the price of winter jujubes gets more expensive year after year. Nowadays, more and more people are growing winter jujubes. Regarding the management of winter jujube seedlings during the dormant period and the issue of increasing the fruit set rate, we have also summarized this article for everyone. Let us take a look together.

I. Management of Winter Jujube Seedlings During the Dormant Period

1. Winter pruning is generally completed before the winter jujube seedlings sprout. The main purpose is to create a reasonable tree structure, ease the contradiction in nutrient distribution within the tree, regulate the relationship between vegetative growth and reproductive growth, and promote fruit set. For young trees that have not yet fruited or have just started fruiting, they should be pruned year by year according to the expected tree shape.

2. Pest and disease control After pruning the winter jujube seedlings, pests and diseases should be controlled promptly. For large fruiting trees, the old bark should be scraped off. Before scraping the bark, spread a plastic sheet on the ground, and after scraping, take it out of the jujube orchard for centralized burning. For main branches with dieback disease, use a sterilized sharp knife to scrape off the diseased scars and apply a fungicide.

3. Water and fertilizer management Winter jujube seedlings need large amounts of organic and inorganic nutrients, and applying sufficient fertilizer throughout the year is the foundation for ensuring a good harvest. In view of this tree species' particularly vigorous vegetative growth and development, in order to control excessive growth of the jujube trees before flowering, except for particularly barren jujube orchards that need fertilizer in spring, most jujube orchards should avoid or minimize the application of quick-acting chemical fertilizers.

II. How to Increase the Fruit Set Rate of Winter Jujube Seedlings?

1. Control moisture

For winter jujubes, if the weather is relatively dry during this period, watering is needed, and spray-type watering should be adopted, spraying the entire tree, which can effectively ensure air humidity. The same applies during the fruiting period, but at that time it is only necessary to ensure sufficient moisture at the roots.

2. Light distribution

In places where there are many fruits and dense leaves, the branches need to be separated so that sunlight can better reach the winter jujubes hidden inside. For places with dense leaves but few fruits, they should be pressed toward the inside of the tree, or even fixed in places with little light, and then covered by other places with relatively dense fruits, increasing the light-receiving area of high-quality winter jujubes and raising the fruit set rate.

3. Reasonable fertilization

Fertilization is a threshold that cannot be avoided in winter jujube cultivation. The soil nutrients in relatively poor orchards make it very difficult to guarantee a high fruit set rate for winter jujubes, so at this time fertilizer is the best supplementary means. For the initial base fertilizer, organic fertilizer should be the main component, with compound fertilizer as a supplement; during the flowering period, nitrogen fertilizer should be the main component, making the branches of the winter jujube trees stronger and grow faster.

4. Branch and leaf management

This aspect does have some influence on the fruit set rate, but relatively not that much, so everyone can give it a try. This aspect is mainly to reduce the waste of nutrients in the winter jujube trees, letting the tree's nutrients go to effective places. First, clean up some dead and diseased branches and leaves, and remove some branches and leaves that are in low-sunlight areas yet grow luxuriantly, as the fruit set rate in such places will be very low.

That is all we have summarized today regarding questions about winter jujube seedlings. We hope this article can also be helpful for your planting.