Detailed Explanation of Key Points of Bayberry Planting and Management Techniques

“Quenching thirst by thinking of plums” is the best description of the taste of bayberry; just seeing a bayberry makes one's mouth water. Bayberries can be eaten raw, or processed into dried bayberries, or made into bayberry wine, all of which taste quite good. So what are the key points of bayberry planting and management techniques? Let us learn about them together.

I. Selecting varieties

There are many cultivated varieties, which can be divided by fruit color into white varieties, red varieties, pink varieties and dark varieties. Propagation methods include seed propagation, division propagation and grafting propagation. Seed propagation: select ripe fruit, remove the flesh, dry in the shade, and store by the moist sand stratification method. Sow in spring; after emergence, the seedlings can be used as seedling stock until the 2nd year. Division propagation: dig up two-year-old suckers from the base of old plants and plant them. Grafting propagation: select two-year-old seedling stock as rootstock, graft by bark grafting or cut grafting around Qingming, then cultivate for another 2 years before transplanting, open holes at a row spacing of 5m×5m, with 1 plant per hole, cover with soil and press firm, and water. About 450 plants are planted per 1hm, and a small number of male plants should be planted appropriately for pollination.

II. Grafting techniques

Rootstock preparation. Dig up the grown one-year-old bayberry seedling stock (own rootstock), remove the leaves in the field and transport it back indoors; when grafting, cut off the part above 5-6 cm from the ground. Seedling stock purchased from other places should be treated in the same way. Those with a root crown diameter of less than 0.5 cm are unqualified seedling stock, cannot be grafted that year, and must be cultivated for another 1 year.

Scion collection. It is required to collect 1-2-year-old bayberry branches from bayberry trees in full fruit stage without pests and diseases, and select and cut scions according to the thickness of the rootstock. When cutting directly from the tree, branches 40-60 cm long may be kept, and the leaves on the branches should be stripped off by hand from top to bottom; after being tied into bundles and transported back indoors, they are then cut into small branch sections about 8 cm long for grafting. In the Wenzhou area of Zhejiang, seedling growers habitually cut scions to 10-15 cm long.

Grafting time. Bayberry seedling cultivation mostly uses branch cut grafting, around mid-March to early April in the Cixi area of Zhejiang, before the bayberry sap flows. In southern areas the time may be slightly earlier, while in northern areas it should be relatively delayed.

Grafting method. For larger quantities grafted with one-year-old seedling stock (small rootstock), digging grafting (after the rootstock is dug up and transported indoors) and cut grafting are suitable; for smaller quantities grafted with multi-year-old seedling stock (large rootstock), field grafting and cleft grafting are better. For digging-grafted seedlings, they can be planted directly in the field immediately after grafting, or stored indoors for about 1-2 weeks, and then planted dry on a clear day. Production practice shows that after grafting, small grafted seedlings placed indoors on mud or concrete ground, stacked flat to a height of 50-60 cm, with the roots sprayed moist with a small pot and covered with plastic film, after 7-15 days have well-healed graft unions and a relatively high survival rate when planted in the field.

Grafting propagation. The survival rate of bayberry grafting is relatively low. In order to improve the survival rate of grafting, scions should be taken from 7-15-year-old healthy mother trees without disease, using good two-year-old branches. It is generally carried out in mid-February, before the sap begins to flow. Cut grafting is mainly used, with scions 8-9 cm long and having 9-10 buds, and then grafted. The cut grafting method is the same as grafting of other fruit trees. After the grafted seedlings survive, attention should be paid to weeding and pest and disease control to ensure the robust growth of new shoots (buds on the scions).

III. Transplanting methods

Bayberry is deeply loved and favored by landscaping staff in gardens and residential communities. Bayberry generally prefers transplanting with large seedlings. For cultivating bayberry, transplanting should be done after 3-4 years, with a plant spacing of 4 m or 6 m being suitable, and it may also be determined according to actual needs.

The hole specification depends on the thickness of the bayberry seedling, and is preferably 0.5-0.8 m long × 0.5-0.8 m wide and 0.4-0.6 m deep. Before transplanting, sufficient base fertilizer should be applied at the bottom of the hole (topdressing may also be done after the plants survive). Large bayberry seedlings must carry a soil ball; the size of the soil ball depends on the seedling, and generally for a trunk diameter of 3-5 cm, the soil ball diameter is 15-30 cm.

When lifting bayberry seedlings, first dig away the soil around the soil ball, and use straw rope to bind the upper part of the soil ball firmly and tightly to prevent the soil ball from loosening. Then dig away the soil at the bottom, cut off the main root, gently lift to the ground, and then bind and tie the entire soil ball firmly with straw rope.

Before planting bayberry, branches and leaves should be reasonably pruned according to the actually required tree shape, to prevent excessive water evaporation causing drying out. After the seedling is placed in the planting hole, the straw rope should be cut all around to facilitate close contact when filling soil and to make the straw rope easy to rot. When planted, the surface soil at the seedling root zone should be 5-10 cm above the ground, and water thoroughly once; consider shading according to the transplanting season, and the survival rate can generally reach more than 95%.