Key Management Techniques for Red-Fleshed Honey Pomelo in June
How should red-fleshed honey pomelo be managed in June? Please advise. June is the period when the plum rain season is concentrated, with heavy, intense and relatively concentrated rainfall that easily causes floods and waterlogging. It is also an important time for red-fleshed honey pomelo management. The management methods can refer to the following: (1) Continue fruit retention. The second physiological fruit drop period that begins in mid-to-late May (...
How should red-fleshed honey pomelo be managed in June? Please advise.
June is the period when the plum rain season is concentrated, with heavy, intense and relatively concentrated rainfall that easily causes floods and waterlogging. It is also an important time for red-fleshed honey pomelo management. The management methods can refer to the following:
(1) Continue fruit retention
The second physiological fruit drop period that begins in mid-to-late May (also called June fruit drop) differs from the first physiological fruit drop period in that the dropped fruit does not carry the fruit stalk. For red-fleshed honey pomelo trees whose canopy fruit is not obviously different in size and mostly consists of small fruit, in order to reduce fruit drop, foliar topdressing should be strengthened, spraying 0.2% urea plus 0.3% monopotassium phosphate or nutrient solution fertilizer at intervals of about 10 days; in mountain red-fleshed honey pomelo orchards, add 0.2% borax for spraying. For young fruiting trees and vigorous trees prone to fruit drop, remove summer shoots once every 7-10 days to help retain fruit. In view of the relatively intense competition for nutrients between shoots and fruit, which easily aggravates fruit drop, for vigorous trees that have already been girdled (girdling width 2-3 mm), a further check should be made before early June, and the healing tissue should be wiped off again from girdling cuts that have healed early.
(2) Tree management
For young trees, pinch the tips when summer shoots have grown more than 25-30 cm, to promote branching and new shoot growth and expand the canopy. For mature fruiting trees, control the sprouting and growth of summer shoots through fertilizer and water control and bud removal. For senescent trees, heavily pruned trees, top-grafted trees and others with exposed branches and trunks, as temperatures rise and light becomes intense, branch and trunk sunscald is likely to occur, so whitewashing should be applied. The whitewash formula is 500 g quicklime, 15 g sulfur powder, 10 g salt and 3-4 kg clean water, mixed evenly. After the second physiological fruit drop ends at the end of June, rough fruit thinning can begin. This is mainly aimed at plants bearing many fruits. Before starting fruit thinning, first make an overall assessment of the whole orchard, starting with red-fleshed honey pomelo trees bearing too much fruit, and carry out rough fruit thinning first according to a leaf-to-fruit ratio of 15:1, thinning diseased and insect-damaged fruit, deformed fruit, mechanically damaged fruit, small fruit and excessively dense fruit. During the plum rain season, allow weeds to grow, clear ditches and channels, and prevent water accumulation.
(3) Pest and disease control
At this time, with high temperature and high humidity, the red-fleshed honey pomelo rust mite enters a rapid proliferation period, and black spot disease first appears in early June. If there are 1-2 rust mites per field of view under a 10x magnifying glass on leaves or fruit, or the damage symptoms first appear on the underside of spring leaves, control should begin. You can choose 25%-50% fenbutatin oxide 1500-2000 times dilution, or 20% carbosulfan 1500 times dilution, etc., plus mancozeb 600-800 times dilution to control rust mites and black spot disease, etc. At the end of June and in early July, control black spot disease once more. For longhorn beetles, you can catch adults, scrape off eggs and larvae; when larvae cannot be hooked out, plug the hole with cotton dipped in 80% dichlorvos emulsifiable concentrate or 40% dimethoate emulsifiable concentrate and other undiluted liquids, then seal the outside with sticky mud to fumigate them to death. For scale insects, during the first and second generation hatching periods, choose 99% mineral oil emulsion 200 times dilution, 25% buprofezin (pufengling) 1000 times dilution and other pesticides for control.
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