Latest Chinese Pine Planting Techniques and Methods Tutorial
Chinese pine is a type of pine tree, a needle-leaved evergreen tree of the genus Pinus in the family Pinaceae, a species endemic to China, produced in the northeastern, central, northwestern and southwestern provinces and regions, the wood is rich in resin and rot-resistant, suitable for construction, furniture, sleepers, mine props, utility poles, man-made fibers and other timber uses, and has extremely high cultivation value. Let's take a look at Chinese pine planting techniques together!
Growth Habits of Chinese Pine
Chinese pine is a light-loving, deep-rooted tree species that prefers a dry and cold climate, and can grow well on deep, well-drained acidic, neutral or calcareous loess soils. In China it is produced in southern Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces and regions, growing at elevations of 100-2600 m, mostly forming pure forests, with vertical distribution gradually increasing from east to west and from north to south; artificial forests exist in Liaoning, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other provinces.
Sowing Techniques for Chinese Pine
1. Seed collection: Select 30- to 50-year-old Chinese pines with attractive tree form, good trunk quality, strong resistance and no pests or diseases as mother trees for seed collection. After the cones mature in early October, it is the best time for seed collection. The collected cones are placed in a ventilated place to dry in the sun, and after the seeds come out and are cleaned, they are disinfected by spraying with an 800-fold dilution of 75% chlorothalonil wettable granules. After drying, they are stored by the dry storage method in a low-temperature, dry place for later use.
2. Container seedling raising: Choose a wind-sheltered, sunny place that is convenient for operations as the seedling-raising site. The seedling-raising site should be plowed and made into low beds or flat beds. Use 10 cm tall, 7 cm diameter nutrition pots as seedling-raising containers, and use sandy loam and decomposed fermented cattle and horse manure to make the substrate, which should be disinfected.
3. Germination promotion and sowing: Before sowing Chinese pine, the seeds should be subjected to germination promotion treatment. They can be soaked in 45°C warm water for 24 hours; after absorbing enough water, take them out and cover them with a wet cloth, spray water every day, and after one week the seed coats crack and they can be used for sowing. Before sowing, arrange the nutrition pots neatly on the seedbed, then sow, sowing 5 to 7 seeds per nutrition pot, cover with plain sandy soil after sowing, with the soil thickness exceeding the pot height by 2 cm, then spray water and keep the pot soil moist regularly.
Nursery Disinfection for Chinese Pine
1. Pentachloronitrobenzene: For each square meter of nursery land, use 4 g of 75% pentachloronitrobenzene and 5 g of zineb. After mixing the two chemicals, mix them evenly with 12 kg of fine soil. When sowing, place it underneath and cover on top. This method has a special effect on preventing and controlling soil-borne anthracnose, damping-off, sudden wilt, sclerotinia and other diseases.
2. Formalin: For each square meter of nursery land, use 50 mL of formalin added to 10 kg of water and spray evenly on the ground surface, then cover with straw bags or plastic film, keep sealed for about 10 days, then remove the covering to let the gas dissipate. After 2 more days, sowing and cuttings can be done. It has a good effect on preventing and controlling damping-off, brown spot, angular leaf spot, anthracnose and other diseases.
3. Bordeaux mixture: For each square meter of nursery land, use 2.5 kg of equal-part Bordeaux mixture, add 10 g of ceresan and spray the soil. When the soil is slightly dry, sowing and cuttings can be done. It has a relatively obvious effect on preventing and controlling black spot, spot disease, gray mold, rust, brown spot, anthracnose and other diseases.
4. Carbendazim: Carbendazim can prevent and control many fungal diseases, and has a very obvious effect on diseases caused by ascomycetes and deuteromycetes. For soil disinfection, use 50% wettable powder at 1.5 g per square meter, which can prevent and control root rot, stem rot, leaf blight, gray spot and other diseases. It can also be made into toxic soil at a ratio of 1:20 and scattered on the seedbed, effectively preventing and controlling seedling-stage diseases.
5. Ferrous sulfate: Treat the soil with a 3% solution, using 0.5 kg of medicinal liquid per square meter. It can prevent and control seedling blight of coniferous flowering plants and peach and plum leaf curl disease, and can also simultaneously control chlorosis in iron-deficient flowers.
6. Amobam: Amobam is an organic sulfur fungicide with strong sterilizing power, can penetrate into plant bodies, and after decomposition in the plant body still has a certain fertilizing effect. Use a 350-fold dilution of 50% water-soluble amobam, irrigating 3 kg of diluted liquid per square meter of nursery soil, to prevent and control black spot, downy mildew, powdery mildew and damping-off of flowers, and also effectively prevent and control many diseases of bulb-type seed balls.
7. Junwujun: Use Junwujun, Zhendeji and furnace slag, stir evenly and scatter into the tree holes, which can effectively prevent root diseases and underground pests. Soil disinfection should be carried out before sowing.
Seedling Raising Techniques for Chinese Pine
1. Land preparation and bed making: Before land preparation, first apply 50 jin of ferrous sulfate, then use a shovel to deep-plow 20 cm, then rake level and make beds, with a bed width of 1.5 m and a length of 20 to 50 m, build ridges and make beds. For planting seedlings of about 50 cm, dig holes at fixed points at a spacing of 1.5 m × 1.5 m between plants and rows, one row per bed, planting 300 plants per mu.
2. Digging holes and planting seedlings: When planting Chinese pine, one row per bed, with fixed points in the center of the bed, holes of 30 × 30 cm, leaving 4 to 5 cm of loose soil at the bottom. If it is a soil ball wrapped in straw rope, it can be left untied; if it is wrapped in nylon rope or plastic, it must be untied, to avoid the bad result of planting dead seedlings. After planting the seedlings, level the bed surface and then irrigate. If the seedling leaves turn yellow, it is iron deficiency, and ferrous sulfate needs to be applied.
3. Fertilizer and water management: After Chinese pine is planted, apply water twice within one week, after that loosen the soil and preserve moisture, then water once more in early May, and after that do not water if the weather is not dry; in June apply fertilizer once, and in August apply ferrous sulfate once. Dig holes beside the plants and apply at points. For loosening soil and hoeing weeds, carry out once every 20 days, requiring careful and meticulous work, generally reaching 4 to 5 cm deep, requiring even hoeing, loose soil with no clods, and weeds hoed clean and picked clean.
4. Chinese pine shaping: Shaping and pruning is a necessary management technique to ensure that Chinese pine trees have a beautiful form, are neat and uniform, grow well, and do not affect the construction of urban public welfare facilities and people's lives. Which measures to take should be determined according to the specific purposes such as the greening site, location, occupied space and artistic modeling. Generally, it is inseparable from removing redundant branches, diseased and pest branches, and thinning out excessively vigorous branches growing in unsuitable directions.
5. Pest and disease control: For the prevention and control of pests and diseases of greening Chinese pine, the principle of “timely discovery, active prevention and control, and treating early and thoroughly” should be followed. After pests and diseases are found during the growing season, pesticide control should be organized in a timely manner. In winter, the trunks should be whitewashed or sprayed with lime-sulfur mixture to eliminate insect eggs and pupae on the trunks.
Cold Protection for Chinese Pine
1. Soil-covering cold protection method: Soil-covering cold protection means burying overwintering Chinese pine seedlings in the soil for the entire winter, so that the Chinese pine seedlings and seedbed soil maintain a certain temperature and are not affected by sharp temperature changes and other adverse external factors. At the same time, it can also reduce water transpiration from Chinese pine seedlings and evaporation of soil moisture, maintain a certain amount of soil moisture, help maintain the water balance in the seedlings, and effectively prevent death caused by freezing damage and physiological drought of Chinese pine seedlings.
2. Grass-covering cold protection method: Cover and press the seedbed with rice straw, weeds, wheat straw, etc. to prevent freezing damage. Cover in early winter when the soil freezes, with a thickness such that the seedling tips are not exposed. At the first snowfall, shake the covering grass so that snow falls into the rows of Chinese pine seedlings and fills the gaps, so as to avoid later snowfall pressing and injuring the Chinese pine seedlings. One week before lifting seedlings in spring, remove the covering grass in 2 to 3 stages, to avoid the Chinese pine seedlings suffering frost if the grass is removed too early. If the seedbed is too dry before covering with grass, irrigation can be carried out to keep the soil moist, but absolutely do not irrigate after the soil freezes.
3. Barrier-setting cold protection method: For evergreen conifer seedlings or some precious tree species and newly introduced broadleaf tree seedlings, when their growth is relatively weak, barrier-setting cold protection can be adopted. In cold protection areas and temporary planting areas, a cold protection barrier should be set every 20-25 m using whole bundles of straw stalks. The cold protection barriers should be removed in 2 stages within 3 to 5 days before lifting seedlings in spring, and should not be removed too early. Setting barriers for cold protection can not only reduce wind speed and reduce cold damage to Chinese pine seedlings, but also help the soil preserve moisture, increase snow accumulation, and effectively prevent spring drought.
4. Winter irrigation cold protection method: Test results from various places show that the winter irrigation cold protection method can be adopted for conifer seedlings such as Chinese pine, Mongolian Scots pine and Chinese arborvitae. Use a plow to plow the furrow (or bed path) into deep ditches, cover the plowed soil onto both sides of the ridge (bed), and irrigate from the side of the ridge (bed) surface before the soil freezes, irrigating thoroughly and sufficiently, so that the Chinese pine seedlings and soil maintain sufficient moisture to meet the small amount of water consumption of the Chinese pine seedlings during overwintering, and avoid and reduce the occurrence of physiological drought.
5. Whitewashing cold protection method: Whitewashing for cold protection has a certain effect on the overwintering cold protection of Chinese pine seedlings. The specific method is: prepare a 1:1.5 Bordeaux mixture with increased lime content plus paste emulsion, and spray it on Chinese pine seedlings. The spraying time is about before the soil freezes. Throughout the winter, the appearance of the Chinese pine seedlings is grayish white, which can both reflect sunlight and prevent sharp temperature changes, and also play a role in blocking leaf stomata, inhibiting transpiration, protecting the seedlings and preventing diseases.
6. Film cold protection method: This cold protection method is widely promoted and applied in production. For seedbed seedlings of bed-sown species such as spruce, fir, yew, Chinese arborvitae and sabina, use iron rods and bamboo strips to support an arch shape on the seedbed, cover with plastic film to make a small arch shed, and bury the surroundings tightly with soil. It is simple and easy to carry out. Before covering with film, irrigate thoroughly with bottom water; covering with film preserves heat and moisture, with suitable temperature and humidity, and convenient management. In severe winter cold, a thick straw curtain can be covered on top of the plastic arch shed to provide cold protection and heat preservation.
7. Chemical control method: Use antifreeze agent to spray for freeze protection before freezing, generally spraying 3 to 5 times.