A Detailed Guide to the Nutritional Value and Cultivation Methods of Peaches

The peach is a fruit with high nutritional value, containing protein, fat, sugar, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and vitamins B and C, among other components. Peaches are relatively high in iron, ranking nearly first among fruits, so eating peaches can help prevent and treat anemia. Its effects include promoting salivation; lubricating the intestines; activating blood circulation; and dispersing accumulations. It is used to treat blood stasis and amenorrhea, abdominal masses, and to kill intestinal worms, relieve cough and upward-rushing qi, soften hardness below the heart, stop sudden violent bleeding, promote menstruation, stop heart and abdominal pain, and treat blood disorders, blood constipation, and blood dryness, to loosen and moisten the bowels, break blood stasis, and kill the three worms. Below is an introduction to the cultivation methods for peaches.

Peach cultivation areas are now growing larger and larger. With social development, the traditional peach tree cultivation method (open-center tree form, planting 40 to 70 trees per mu) has many drawbacks. Because traditional planting methods lead to a shaded, closed peach orchard once the trees reach full production, fertilizer application, pesticide spraying, fruit picking and transport can only be done by hand, and mechanical equipment cannot enter, resulting in high labor costs. Spraying pesticides in the peach orchard in summer also makes pesticide poisoning very likely, so the traditional cultivation method is becoming less and less suitable. The Daxing Fruit Professional Cooperative in Pingyi County, Shandong Province, has developed a wide-narrow row peach tree cultivation technique that is simple to manage and gives early high yields, saves labor and effort, and is suitable for large-scale, extensive peach orchard development. It is briefly described as follows:

Planting method: use alternating row spacings of 3 m and 2 m, with a plant spacing of 1 m. Plant about 270 trees per mu.

Advantages:

1. A single-trunk spindle tree form is used, with a canopy diameter of 1 m and a tree height of about 3 m, providing good ventilation and light penetration and improving fruit set rate and fruit quality.

2. The large row (3 m) allows machines and vehicles to enter the rows for spraying, fertilizing, picking fruit, weeding, and so on, saving a great deal of labor and making management convenient.

3. After reaching full production, side branches do not need to be propped up with supports every year. Winter pruning saves labor and is easy to master.

4. It favors early production and high yields. In the second year after planting, the yield per tree can reach 15 jin, and the yield per mu can reach 4000 jin; in the third year, the yield per tree can reach 30 jin, and the yield per mu can reach 8000 jin; at full production, the yield per mu exceeds ten thousand jin. In contrast, the traditional open-center tree form does not reach full production until 5 years after planting.

Cultivation techniques:

1. Plant in autumn. It is best to plant before the soil freezes in the previous year, so that in spring the seedlings first develop roots and then sprout, giving a high survival rate and vigorous growth after sprouting, which helps produce strong seedlings in the first year.

2. Shaping and management in the first year are the key. After the seedlings sprout, keep one main branch growing upward. Be careful to spray pesticides to prevent pests from damaging the terminal bud. Side branches whose thickness exceeds half that of the main branch should be cut off at any time to prevent them from competing with the main branch for nutrients and affecting the upward growth of the trunk. Begin keeping branches starting 40 cm from the base of the trunk. Apply nitrogen fertilizer or urea in several split applications in the early and middle periods to promote rapid seedling growth; generally, the tree can grow to more than 2.5 m tall in the same year. After August, stop using nitrogen fertilizer and apply phosphorus and potassium fertilizer. Twist the tips of side branches and bend branches; depending on tree vigor, plant growth regulators such as paclobutrazol and chlormequat can be sprayed appropriately to control excessive growth, promote flower bud formation, and lay a good foundation for fruiting the following year. It should be noted that because peach trees have strong apical dominance, the tree form should always be controlled so that the lower and middle parts are large and the upper part is small, to prevent the upper shoots from growing too vigorously and causing the lower trunk to become bare. Therefore, summer pruning should be emphasized, with summer pruning as the main method and winter pruning as supplementary.