Detailed explanation of the key points of young fruit grafting technology for Shatian pomelo
When Shatian pomelo trees first enter the fruiting stage, it often happens that some orchards have many flowers and fruits while others have few, and within the same orchard some trees also bear many flowers and fruits while others bear few. To change this unbalanced phenomenon, ease the excessive vigor of young trees entering the fruiting stage, promote flower bud differentiation and...
When Shatian pomelo trees first enter the fruiting stage, it often happens that some orchards have many flowers and fruits while others have few, and within the same orchard some trees also bear many flowers and fruits while others bear few. To change this unbalanced phenomenon, ease the excessive vigor of young trees entering the fruiting stage, promote flower bud differentiation and advance fruiting, the method of young fruit grafting can be used: young fruits thinned from trees or branches bearing more fruit are immediately grafted onto overly vigorous young trees or vigorous branches. This not only reduces the yield loss caused by fruit thinning, but also balances growth, inhibits the growth vigor of vigorous branches, and thereby promotes their flower bud differentiation.
In South China, the time for young fruit grafting is from late May to early to mid-June (after the second physiological fruit drop). The objects to be grafted are young trees that bear relatively little fruit, young trees that have not flowered or fruited, or young trees whose fruit is unevenly distributed within the canopy. The specific operation is as follows: from Shatian pomelo trees bearing too much fruit, especially from branches with dense fruit or multiple-fruit branches that need thinning, select healthy young fruits with a transverse diameter of 2-3 cm and carefully cut them off from a point 1.5-2 cm along the fruit stalk; immediately treat them with 500-fold thiophanate-methyl, and graft them by the cut-grafting method onto the above-mentioned trees that bear less fruit or no fruit; the spring shoots of the trees to be grafted must be healthy and vigorous, have more than 4 leaves, and the thickness of the shoot must match the thickness of the cut fruit stalk, so as to facilitate cut grafting. The cut on the spring shoot must also be disinfected with 500-fold thiophanate-methyl and immediately wrapped well with plastic (11340,-15.00,-0.13%) film. When grafting, the grafted young fruits must be reasonably and evenly distributed in all directions of the canopy, the fruit load determined according to tree vigor, and the specific number of young fruits to be grafted determined according to a 50% survival rate.
Management after young fruit grafting: promptly remove new shoots sprouting on the trees with grafted young fruits, check the survival rate 7-10 days after grafting, ungrafted young fruits that do not survive will fall off on their own, and a supplementary grafting should be done promptly once; after two months the film can be removed.