The Latest Tutorial on Horse Chestnut Cultivation Techniques and Methods
The horse chestnut is also known as the Chinese buckeye tree, Chinese buckeye seed, Tianshi chestnut, happy nut, monkey chestnut, etc. It is a deciduous tree of the genus Aesculus in the family Sapindaceae. Its seeds are edible, but eaten directly they taste bitter and astringent; they must be boiled in alkaline water before they can be eaten, and they then taste like chestnuts. Starch can also be extracted from them. The wood is fine and dense and can be used to make various utensils. The seeds can be used medicinally, and the oil pressed from them can be used to make soap. Now let us take a look at horse chestnut cultivation techniques!
Growth Habits of the Horse Chestnut
The horse chestnut is cultivated throughout the Yellow River basin and in the eastern provinces of China, with wild populations found only in the Qinling Mountains. It is naturally distributed in mountainous areas below 700 m in elevation, and in the Yellow River basin this species is an excellent street tree and garden tree. It prefers light and tolerates slight shade, prefers a warm climate but can also tolerate cold, and prefers deep, fertile, moist, well-drained soil. It is deep-rooted, has strong sprouting ability, grows at a moderate to slow rate, and is long-lived. In hot summers its leaves are prone to sunscald.
Propagation of the Horse Chestnut by Sowing
1. Seed collection: In mid-autumn, when the outer skin of the horse chestnut fruit turns from green to brownish yellow and individual fruits begin to split, the seeds can be collected. After collection, the fruits are dried in the shade, and once the fruits split naturally the outer skin is peeled off. Finally, seeds that are large, plump, glossy, free of pests and diseases, and free of mechanical damage are selected. The selected clean seeds are mixed evenly with moist sand at a ratio of 1:3, then stored in a moist, well-drained soil pit using the moist stratification method, with ventilation holes left in place.
2. Nursery site preparation: Choose neutral or slightly acidic sandy loam with deep, fertile soil and good drainage as the seedling-raising site. Two to three months before sowing, deep plowing should be carried out to remove impurities and allow the soil to dry. Before sowing, fine soil preparation should be carried out to make the ground level and the soil particles uniform in size. Apply decomposed and fermented cow and horse manure as a base fertilizer at a rate of 2500 kg per mu, then disinfect the soil with quintozene.
3. Sowing method: Spring sowing is generally used, carried out in late March. Strip sowing in spots is used, with a plant-to-row spacing of 20 cm × 25 cm and a depth of 3 cm to 4 cm. When sowing, the hilum should face downward, and the seeds are covered with 4 cm of soil, with the covering soil level with the bed surface, then lightly pressed down with the foot. The sowing rate is 150 kg per mu.
4. Post-sowing management: Before the seeds germinate, the soil must be kept moist; they emerge after one month. Weeds must be removed promptly to ensure there are no weeds in the seedling area. After the seedlings reach 25 cm in height, the soil should be loosened and weeds removed, and thinning should be carried out on rainy days. During the seedling growth period, the nursery site should also be kept moist frequently. From the emergence of the seedlings to early June is the rapid height-growth period of the horse chestnut, and the amount of watering should be increased. July to August is the lignification period of horse chestnut seedlings, and the amount of watering should be reduced to promote stem growth and lignification of the seedlings.
Cultivation Techniques for the Horse Chestnut
1. Planting pit: The horse chestnut has a deep main root and few lateral roots, so it is a tree species that does not transplant well; therefore, when transplanting, a soil ball must be retained, with the diameter of the soil ball being 6 to 8 times the diameter at breast height of the tree. Horse chestnuts should be planted in early spring before they sprout or in late autumn after all their leaves have fallen. To improve the survival rate of planting, the planting pit should be dug as large as possible before planting, as this is beneficial to the growth of the plant. When planting, care should be taken not to plant too deeply, as too deep planting can easily cause the plant to have suppressed buds. Generally, the planting depth can be slightly higher than the upper surface of the soil ball by 3 cm to 5 cm, and when planting, the backfilled soil should be firmed in layers.
2. Watering: Immediately after planting, the first watering should be given; a second watering should be given after one week, and a third watering after about another 10 days. After the third watering, watering can be done according to soil moisture conditions, generally giving one thorough watering per month. July and August are periods of abundant rainfall, so watering can be reduced or omitted. In September and October, one thorough watering can be given each month, and at the end of November or the beginning of December, enough freezing water should be given to soak the soil thoroughly. In early March of the following year, enough thawing water should be given to soak the soil thoroughly. April and May are the dry spring period; the spring monsoon lasts a long time and the wind is strong, so the transpiration of the plant is relatively high. Therefore, the watering frequency can be increased, with watering every 15 days, and thereafter one thorough watering per month.
3. Fertilization: The horse chestnut likes fertilizer, so sufficient base fertilizer should be applied before planting. The base fertilizer is best as farmyard manure such as cow and horse manure or leaf mold. Although these fertilizers have low nutrient strength, they are mild and also help improve soil looseness. The base fertilizer should be fully mixed with the planting soil. Sufficient fertilizer can accelerate its growth rate and improve the plant's resistance to pests and diseases. In addition to applying base fertilizer at planting time, fertilizer should also be applied throughout the entire growing period, including for some large-sized street trees.
4. Pruning: The shaping and pruning of the horse chestnut should be carried out after leaf fall in winter each year or before sprouting in the following spring. Because the crown of the horse chestnut is naturally round-headed, it is best to maintain the original crown shape. Shaping and pruning should mainly follow the principles of maintaining a beautiful crown and good ventilation and light penetration. Overly dense branches should be thinned out, and overly long branches should be shortened, so that the branches are evenly distributed and grow robustly. Dead branches, diseased and pest-infested branches, inner-canopy branches, slender branches, and poorly growing branches should also be pruned away, which helps concentrate nutrient supply and form a good crown.