A Detailed Guide to Seed Collection and Seedling Cultivation Methods for the Choerospondias axillaris
Choerospondias axillaris, also known as "four-eyed fruit" and "Hualang fruit," is a relatively good fast-growing afforestation tree species. Its bark and leaves can be used to extract tannin, the fruit can be eaten raw or used to make wine, the fruit stone can serve as a raw material for activated carbon, and the stem bark fiber can be made into rope. The bark and fruit are used in medicine and have anti-inflammatory, detoxifying, hemostatic and pain-relieving effects, and when applied externally can treat large-area scald and burn injuries. So how are Choerospondias axillaris seeds collected? What seedling cultivation methods are there? Let's take a look together below.
1. How are Choerospondias axillaris seeds collected?
The seed collection time for Choerospondias axillaris is generally in late October, selecting robust mother trees that have grown for 2 years for seed collection. When the fruit skin of Choerospondias axillaris changes entirely from green to yellow, this is the sign that the seeds have matured, and because the Choerospondias axillaris tree is relatively tall, seed collection is inconvenient, so you can wait for the fruit to fall off on its own and pick it up from the ground. After the fruit is collected and transported back, pile the fruit together, cover with rice straw for retting, spray with 40°C warm water 2~3 times a day, and after 7d rub in running water to remove impurities such as the fruit skin, scoop out and drain the surface moisture from the seeds, and spread them in a cool, ventilated place until the seed moisture content drops to 25%, then dry-store them, or you can dig a pit for the seeds and store them in sand.
2. What seedling cultivation methods are there for Choerospondias axillaris?
1. Seed treatment and sowing
In early March, take out the stored seeds, rinse them twice with clean water, remove the floating seeds, then soak the seeds in 45°C warm water for about 45h, and after scooping them out, disinfect with 1% potassium permanganate solution for 1h before sowing. Sowing generally adopts drill sowing, with a row spacing of 35cm and a plant spacing of 20cm. When sowing, note that the seed pore faces upward, and use your hand to insert the seeds into the soil. After sowing, cover with 4cm of soil, cover with 3cm of clean rice straw, spray once with thorough water, and secure the rice straw to keep warm and moist. The sowing rate is about 270kg/hm2, and the germination rate is about 60%.
2. Seedling cultivation methods
There are two types: sowing and root burying, with sowing as the main method. Choose fertile, loose soil with good drainage as the nursery site, and apply 1000 kg of decomposed barnyard manure per mu. Sow from December to March of the following year, and before sowing soak the seeds in 50°C warm water for 1-2 days. Sow 40 kg per mu, with a row spacing of 30 cm and a plant spacing of about 15 cm. When sowing, the seed pore faces upward, and after sowing the soil cover thickness is 3 cm. When the seedlings show their first pair of true leaves, choose a cloudy day and combine with thinning to carry out supplemental transplanting. After early July, the seedlings enter a period of vigorous growth, and chemical fertilizer should be deeply applied in furrows once every 15 days, which can be done in combination with loosening the soil after rain. Stop applying nitrogen fertilizer in mid-August to control excessive late-stage growth of the seedlings and improve the degree of lignification of the seedlings. In mid-to-late October, the seedlings stop height growth. One-year-old seedlings are over 1 m tall with a ground diameter of 1-1.5 cm, and the per-mu seedling yield is 7000-8000 plants.
3. Seedling stage management
Choerospondias axillaris seedlings emerge in about 30d. When about 30% of the seedlings have emerged, remove the covering rice straw on a sunny evening or a cloudy day, and promptly spray once with 0.2% carbendazim solution for sterilization. After removing the straw, the seedlings will be fully emerged in about 7d.
When the seedlings grow 2 true leaves, promptly thin and fill in the seedlings, retaining 20~30 seedlings/m2. When thinning, follow the principles of "thin where dense and keep where sparse, keep the strong and remove the weak," etc. After filling in seedlings, water for 2 consecutive days to ensure the survival of the supplemental seedlings. After the seedlings emerge, weeds also begin to grow. When the Choerospondias axillaris seedlings are small, they are most afraid of weed damage, so weeds should be removed as soon as they appear, following as much as possible the principles of "remove small, remove completely, remove early." Manual weeding is best. If there is insufficient manpower, chemical weeding can be used, and generally 25% quizalofop-p-ethyl has a better weeding effect while causing less damage to the seedlings.
The above is an introduction to Choerospondias axillaris. Choerospondias axillaris is a kind of jujube with extremely high nutritional value, and the Choerospondias axillaris tree is a treasure from top to bottom, although Choerospondias axillaris is not commonly seen in people's daily lives. At present, Choerospondias axillaris is naturally distributed in China south of the Yangtze River, south to Hainan, and west to Sichuan, Yunnan and southern Tibet.
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