Practical planting tips for increasing lychee yields
Lychees taste really good. I remember that when I was in elementary school, there was a lesson in the Chinese textbook that described lychees, and that was when I fell in love with eating them. Thinking of how exquisite and translucent they are, like a beauty just out of the bath. There is also a well-known allusion: "A galloping horse raises dust as the consort smiles, no one knows it is the lychees that arrive." This shows that lychees are very popular, since even the emperor's consort loved to eat them. But do not be greedy: eating too many will still cause internal heat. So today let us learn how to increase lychee yields.
1. Pollination methods
There are two ways to pollinate lychees. One is flower-to-flower pollination by insects, and the second is artificial pollination. Pollination by natural insects sometimes also has errors, causing reduced yields, so we sometimes put enough pollinating bees into the lychee orchard to pollinate, at least ensuring that most flowers can be pollinated. Artificial pollination can be further divided into the dry pollen method, the smearing method and the manual picking method. Here we mainly talk about the smearing method. It mainly involves dragging the male flowers' pollen division with a wet towel or cloth, then rinsing the adhered pollen division with water, and finally spraying it onto the female flowers.
2. Fruit-setting techniques
We generally carry out fruit setting through chemicals. Generally, fruit setting is divided into the flowering stage and the post-flowering stage. During the flowering stage, about ten to fifteen days, we need to spray the female flowers with a fruit-setting agent (for specific agents, please consult). This helps increase the probability of fruit set. After the flowers fade, it needs to be sprayed once in Jingxing. If it is not sprayed, then many of the fruits that have already set will also drop, so it is mainly to ensure the fruit-setting rate.
3. Shaping and pruning
Our shaping and pruning of lychee trees is generally divided into three stages. The first stage is when they are still seedlings. At this time, the main purpose is to let the lychee tree grow to a certain extent, and it only needs to spread out. So generally the lower, messier branches are cut off, and at the same time poorly growing branches and leaves are cut off. Finally, places that are too lush need thinning. The second stage is fruiting lychee trees. We mainly prevent branches and leaves from growing too long and blocking sunlight, causing insufficient light, so we try to ensure there are certain gaps. The third stage is after fruit harvest. Sometimes harvesting damages some branches and leaves, so we need to remove the already damaged branches and leaves. Next, cut off some branches with poor fruit-setting rates and keep the best branches, so they will grow new and possibly better branches.
4. Planting density
Generally, we do not let lychee trees grow very tall, so they develop horizontally. That means the spacing of each plant must be scientific, otherwise it will cause problems such as insufficient light and insufficient nutrients. So the best density for lychee planting is at least four meters or five meters between each plant. Planting at such a density can achieve high yields, and the quality of the lychees will also improve.
5. Disease control
The main diseases of lychee are downy blight and anthracnose; the insect pests include stink bugs, stem borers, inchworms, caterpillars, etc. The most basic control method is to clean the orchard once after harvesting lychees every year, cut off diseased or withered branches and leaves, remove all weeds in the orchard, and finally spray a layer of chemicals for protection. This can prevent diseases in the coming year. If these diseases and pests appear during the fruiting period, then treat them with chemicals according to the different symptoms.
The growing environment for lychees is generally in relatively warm areas. In China's Guangzhou area, there are large areas of lychee cultivation, so the lychee growing environment is also a crucial factor. The above are the methods that Qinnongwang teaches everyone to increase lychee yields. Of course, there are more ways to increase yields than these, so if you want to learn more information, please continue to follow us.