How to Keep Papaya Fruit from Dropping? A Detailed Guide to the Latest Fruit-Retention Measures
Papaya can be eaten as a fruit and can also be processed into medicinal material; its effect on arthritis caused by wind-cold is especially notable. In addition, its plant is tall and can also serve as an ornamental garden plant, and in recent years it has been planted more and more widely. However, the papaya grown by some friends shows a rather serious phenomenon of flower and fruit drop, which has a relatively large impact on papaya yield. Below, follow the editor to take a look at the fruit-retention measures for papaya.
1. Reasonable pruning
In addition to winter pruning, a supplementary pruning before flowering can further regulate the number of flower buds of papaya, maintain a suitable ratio of vegetative branches to fruiting branches, promptly cut off excessive flower buds, and cut back and renew weak branches. This allows nutrients to be concentrated and improves the fruit-setting rate. For overly vigorous vegetative branches, pinch out the tips, remove part of the vigorous stem apex growth points, reduce the synthesis of auxin and gibberellin and nutrient consumption, ease the contradiction between vegetative growth and reproductive growth, and significantly increase the fruit-setting rate.
2. Foliar fertilization
On the premise that the tree grows robustly and nutrient supply is sufficient, spraying the plant with trace-element fertilizer has a clear effect on promoting fruit setting, especially for orchards lacking certain trace elements. During full bloom, spray a borax + urea solution 2-3 times, which can promote pollen germination and pollen tube elongation, accelerate the pollination and fertilization process, and significantly increase the fruit-setting rate.
3. Supplementary pollination
Papaya has a high seed-setting rate with self-pollination, but the seed-setting rate with cross-pollination is even higher, reaching 90%, so in production an appropriate number of pollinizer trees should be arranged, which has a clear effect on improving the fruit-setting rate. However, pollination quality is affected by climate, and when the number of pollinizer plants is insufficient, manual supplementary pollination is needed. First, pick bell-shaped flowers that are about to open from robust trees and take out their anthers. If there are only a small number of plants, use a writing brush to dip up pollen and dab it onto the stigma; if the number of plants is relatively large, prepare a solution with 20 grams of pollen, 10 kg of water, 0.5 kg of white sugar, 30 grams of urea, and 10 grams of borax, then spray the flowers with a sprayer.
4. Flower and fruit thinning
Excessive flowers and fruits should be thinned in time to maintain a reasonable load on the tree. This is the key point for striving for high yield, high quality, and preventing alternate bearing. Generally, buds are thinned during pruning, flower buds are thinned before flowering, flowers are thinned during flowering, and fruit thinning is completed within one week to one month after petal fall. For flower thinning, remove inferior flowers that grow weakly and are small; first thin clustered flowering branches and branches with dense inflorescences; first thin the upper part of the tree, then the lower part; first thin the inner canopy, then the outer periphery. For fruit thinning, first remove deformed fruit, then, according to the fruit load to be retained, decide whether to keep a single fruit or double fruit.
The above is an introduction to fruit-retention measures for papaya. We hope it can help you. To learn more related knowledge, please keep following us.