What causes flower and fruit drop in apricot trees?
Why do apricot trees drop flowers and fruit? What causes flower and fruit drop in apricot trees? Please give a detailed introduction. Apricot trees commonly show the phenomenon of "a tree full of flowers but no fruit" or "a tree full of flowers but only half a tree of fruit." Under normal conditions, the natural fruit set rate of apricot trees can only account for about 20% of the complete flowers. Apricot trees have three obvious flower and fruit drops...
Why do apricot trees drop flowers and fruit? What causes flower and fruit drop in apricot trees? Please give a detailed introduction.
Apricot trees commonly show the phenomenon of "a tree full of flowers but no fruit" or "a tree full of flowers but only half a tree of fruit." Under normal conditions, the natural fruit set rate of apricot trees can only account for about 20% of the complete flowers. Apricot trees have three obvious flower and fruit drops. Because the timing of each drop is relatively stable, they are called the physiological fruit drop periods. The first occurs after full bloom; before the ovary has swollen, the flowers drop. The vast majority of the flowers that drop this time are incomplete flowers with male organs but no female organs, unable to complete the pollination and fertilization process; the second occurs about half a month after flowering, when the ovary has already swollen and the young fruit is about one centimeter in diameter. This fruit drop is mainly caused by poor pollination and fertilization; the third occurs during the rapid fruit swelling period, and fruit drop also occurs before the fruit ripens, which is called pre-harvest fruit drop. This fruit drop is mainly caused by insufficient nutrients within the apricot tree. The causes of flower and fruit drop in apricot trees are many-sided. Besides variety, environment and cultivation conditions, it is mainly caused by insufficient nutrient supply within the tree. Because apricot trees have a very large flowering quantity, from the beginning of flowering to the end of flowering lasting about 10 days, they need to consume the nutrient accumulation of 80-110 days of growth from the previous autumn. If the tree's nutrition is poor during the flowering period, it will cause a large amount of flower and fruit drop. Under normal conditions, the weaker the tree vigor, the more serious the flower and fruit drop. Therefore, to prevent flower and fruit drop and increase the fruit set rate, strengthening tree vigor and increasing nutrient accumulation within the tree are key.
In the comprehensive management of apricot orchards, several points should be grasped: 1. Base fertilizer should be applied early. The best time to apply base fertilizer in an apricot orchard is September 20 to October 10. At this time, it is the peak period of pistil differentiation (spraying boron can promote the formation of floral organs), and it is also the key period that determines flower bud quality, so autumn application of base fertilizer must not be taken lightly. The fertilizer type should mainly be one with high organic matter content (such as Sanqin Lvbao), and try not to apply large amounts of chemical fertilizer, and even less urea. If base fertilizer was not applied in the previous autumn, about 2 kg of organic-inorganic compound fertilizer can be applied per tree before germination or before pit hardening, combined with applying amino acids to the tree to supplement the tree's nutritional deficiency. Applying amino acids to the trunk does not go through leaf synthesis and can directly compensate for the nutritional imbalance within the tree caused by excessive flowering. At the same time, it also has antifreeze and ripening-promoting effects, and can be widely promoted in apricot orchards. 2. Apricot orchards should be equipped with pollinizer trees. The ratio of the number of main cultivar trees to pollinizer trees is preferably 4:1. 3. Winter shaping and pruning should be scientific and reasonable. Achieve: leave short fruiting branches unpruned, cut back short conical branches, retract long flowering branches, and completely remove fruiting branches (groups). This reduces the total flowering quantity of the tree, reduces consumption, concentrates nutrients, and improves the fruit set rate.
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