What are the common problems in fruit tree training and pruning?
Fruit trees are a type of economic tree species. There are now hundreds of thousands of known fruit tree species, and various fruit trees have different planting areas in our country. When planting fruit trees, training and pruning work is very important for their growth. Reasonable training and pruning can improve the air and light penetration of fruit trees, promote their growth, and increase the flowering and fruiting rate. However, many friends do not have a correct pruning method, and many problems exist. Below, the editor will introduce some of the common problems everyone has when pruning fruit trees!
1. Main branches too low
In many orchards at the peak fruiting stage now, the selected positions of the three main branches at the base of the fruit trees are no more than 30 cm from the ground. This is very unfavorable for the growth of fruit trees, because if the main branches are selected too low, it will not only hinder soil management and pest and disease control work. It will also reduce the flowering and fruiting rate and affect fruit quality. Especially if the main branches at the bottom of the fruit tree are too close to the roots, the main branches absorb nutrients and water too vigorously, causing the lower branches to grow excessively. The branches of the fruit tree show a phenomenon of strong lower growth and weak upper growth, seriously affecting planting benefits.
2. Uneven growth vigor
The uneven growth vigor of fruit tree branches is caused by differences in the growth progress of main branches selected in the current year or in the two years before and after. This difference will become more and more obvious as time goes on. If such branches are not pruned in time to adjust branch growth, the Water sprouts will grow even more vigorously, while on the contrary they will become weaker. The difference in growth capacity between branches will become greater and greater, so when pruning and selecting main branches, we must pay attention to whether the branches are growing in a balanced way, and must not blindly choose large branches or robust branches. Otherwise, it will cause the number of branches on large branches to increase uncontrollably, consume too many nutrients, and lead to a serious decline in the flowering and fruiting rate.
3. Improper handling of competing branches
Many friends, when selecting and retaining main branches, will use competing branches as main branches. Competing branches are the skeleton branches on fruit trees, and their growth capacity is very strong. In addition, the angle between competing branches and the trunk is very small. If you do not do work such as pinching and bud removal on competing branches in summer, and also select them as main branches, their growth capacity will be very strong, management will be very troublesome, and it will cause imbalance in growth vigor among the main branches. Moreover, the base angle between them and the trunk is very small. If they bear a large amount of fruit, when picking or encountering strong winds, the base is very likely to split. Therefore, we should prune competing branches reasonably to avoid affecting the future growth of the fruit tree.
4. Failure to distinguish main branches from auxiliary branches
When pruning auxiliary nutrient branches, they should be retracted and thinned in time, and then the angle should be opened to prevent the auxiliary nutrient branches from growing longer and longer and causing insufficient growth space for the main branches. If the phenomenon of failing to distinguish main branches from auxiliary branches appears, the framework structure of the fruit tree will be very chaotic. Do not cut back the tip of every branch you see, to prevent excessive growth of all branches and the loss of primary and secondary order. Also, when cutting back the tips of main branches, pay attention to pruning the tips of side branches to prevent the growth capacity of the main branches from becoming weaker than that of the side branches. Pay attention to pruning intensity to avoid the main branches becoming too weak and the auxiliary nutrient branches failing to serve as auxiliary branches, which would seriously affect the growth of the fruit tree.
The above are several problems that commonly appear in everyone's fruit tree training and pruning. When pruning, you should also pay attention to branch bending, pruning distance, and the cutting intensity of main branches, etc. The pruning work of fruit trees is very important and also requires everyone to have a certain level of skill, so everyone must pay much attention. That is all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only, and I hope it can be helpful to everyone!