How to Grow Four-Season Jackfruit? Latest Planting Techniques and Method Tutorial
Four-season jackfruit is the latest variety introduced to China from Malaysia. It has the characteristic of flowering and fruiting multiple times a year, with early fruiting and high yield. Grafted seedlings begin to flower and fruit 2~3 years after planting. The fruit is oblong and medium-sized, with dry bulbs, thick flesh, orange-yellow color, crisp texture, and a clean sweet taste with aroma. Ripe fruit has little latex. It is suitable for cultivation in jackfruit production areas of Guangdong Province. Let us take a look at four-season jackfruit planting techniques together!
Advantages of Growing Four-Season Jackfruit
Four-season jackfruit fruits early and yields heavily, fruiting year-round. The fruit is oblong and medium-sized, with an average single fruit weight of 10.2 kg, dry bulbs, thick flesh, orange-yellow color, crisp texture, and a clean sweet taste with aroma. The soluble solids content of fresh fruit is 21.38%, and vitamin C is 4.73 mg/100 g. Ripe fruit has little latex. Grafted seedlings begin to flower and fruit 2~3 years after planting. The average yield per tree is 58.2 kg for 3-year-old trees and 135.2 kg for 5-year-old trees, generally more than 80.0% higher than local jackfruit.
Growing Environment for Four-Season Jackfruit
Four-season jackfruit prefers lowland environments with high temperature and high humidity, and prefers a warm, humid tropical climate. It is not cold-tolerant. The annual average temperature of the planting site is required to be greater than 21°C, the average temperature of the coldest month greater than 13°C, and the absolute minimum temperature greater than 0°C. A surface temperature of 0°C makes it susceptible to frost damage. It has low requirements for soil and can grow normally in deep, fertile, loose, well-drained acidic soil, as well as in slightly alkaline clay or sandy loam. Cultivation is best in low hilly land or flat land below 600 m elevation.
Planting Techniques for Four-Season Jackfruit
1. Timely planting: Four-season jackfruit can be planted throughout the year, but spring planting (March to April) and autumn planting (September to November) are best. When planting, break up the soil in the planting hole finely and spread the seedling roots out smoothly, then press in fine soil layer by layer, keeping the root crown level with the ground. After planting, water thoroughly immediately and cover the tree tray with plastic film.
2. Reasonable fertilization: Fertilization of young four-season jackfruit trees aims to promote shoot growth and rapid canopy formation. In addition to applying organic fertilizer as base fertilizer in winter, apply quick-acting fertilizer before each new flush to promote and strengthen shoots. For fruiting trees, after harvest, apply heavy organic fertilizer with a small amount of quick-acting fertilizer to restore tree vigor, improve leaf function, and promote flower bud differentiation. In early spring before sprouting and inflorescence emergence, apply quick-acting fertilizer to promote new shoot growth and inflorescence development. When the fruit rapidly enlarges, apply fruit-strengthening fertilizer to promote fruit development.
3. Water management: Four-season jackfruit growth requires sufficient water, especially during the flowering period and fruit development period. If drought lasts a long time, small fruits drop or development stagnates, fruits are small and deformed, bulbs are small and flesh is thin, and quality is poor. Therefore, if it is too dry during the flowering and fruiting periods, irrigation should be carried out. However, the rainy season is prone to waterlogging, so drainage should be done well to prevent root rot from standing water.
4. Training and pruning: The fruiting parts of four-season jackfruit are on the trunk, main branches, and small secondary branches. When the trunk height reaches 1 m, cut back the trunk to promote branching. Cross branches, dense branches, and overlapping branches should be removed as necessary. Generally, cultivate 3~4 primary branches and a canopy height of 3.5 m to form a reasonable tree structure. Pruning of fruiting trees is mainly winter pruning, mainly removing dead branches, weak branches, overly dense branches, residual fruiting branches, and male flower branches.
5. Promoting flowering and fruiting: If vegetative growth is too vigorous after planting and affects flowering and fruiting, girdling or ring cutting can be done on the trunk and main branches so that more nutrients accumulate in the aboveground branches and trunk, promoting the emergence of fruiting branches, flowering, and fruiting. Alternatively, scoring wounds every 30 cm on the trunk and main branches can also achieve the effect of promoting flowering and fruiting. The extent is to pierce the cortex without injuring the xylem, and there is no need to wipe away the flowing sap.
6. Fruit thinning and fruit retention: In cultivation management of four-season jackfruit, fruit thinning is carried out, and it is advisable to retain 3~5 fruits per sq m of canopy, distributed evenly and reasonably. The principle of fruit thinning is to remove overly dense fruits and deformed fruits. During the young fruit stage, spray insecticide + fungicide + foliar fertilizer once every 15 days. When the fruit is basically set, spray insecticide + fungicide once every 30 days to prevent disease and pest damage and promote fruit expansion.
7. Disease and pest control: Among pests of four-season jackfruit, longhorn beetles and beetles are common and serious, damaging branches and trunks, causing gum flow, branch dieback, tree decline, trunk hollowing, and even rot and death. Adults can be captured and killed, eggs scraped off, or chlorpyrifos 600 times solution used to coat the trunk and inject into insect holes. Main diseases include leaf spot, sooty mold, and soft rot of flowers and fruits, which can be controlled with carbendazim 1000 times or chlorothalonil 1500 times.