Detailed Guide to Rapid Shaping Methods for Fruit Display Bonsai (Part 1)

The container is best a finely made unglazed clay pot, which needs good water permeability and air permeability to ensure the oxygen requirements for root growth and to prevent root rot caused by water accumulation in the container. Generally, round shapes are preferred to help the root system spread evenly in all directions.

Grafting

For cleft grafting, select branch groups that have been thinned by winter pruning (with 2 to 4 branches) as scions. The rootstock can be one where grafting failed or another dwarfed, vigorous rootstock. Perform the grafting 1 month before sap flow begins. Split the rootstock at the center of a smooth cut, 3 to 4 cm deep, insert the scion (with both lower sides cut obliquely into smooth flat surfaces, 2 to 3 cm long) into the rootstock split, align the cambium, then wrap tightly and bind firmly from bottom to top with plastic tape and string. Pot it or grow it in the ground for one year before potting. When planting, bury soil over the graft union to keep it warm so that it cannot move.

Root grafting is carried out around Qingming. Choose vigorous rootstocks with strong stress resistance; use old thick trunk sections or well-shaped branch groups as scions. Use bark grafting with tongue insertion, and 2 to 4 rootstocks can be grafted.

Soil, fertilizer and water management

For the potting soil, prepare the nutrient soil according to the different soil nutrient requirements of fruit trees. Before use, the culture soil should be disinfected, such as by baking disinfection or chemical disinfection (sprinkling in 1.5% formalin), etc.

Base fertilizer: Base fertilizer should mainly be organic fertilizer, with chemical fertilizer reasonably combined, and thoroughly decomposed organic fertilizer mixed in when potting.

Topdressing: Apply a quick-acting nitrogen fertilizer once before flowering, with an appropriate amount of phosphorus fertilizer, watering about 1 kg of fertilizer solution per plant; after flower drop, carry out foliar topdressing, using 0.3% monopotassium phosphate plus 0.3% urea, spraying once every 15 days, 3 to 4 times; one month before fruit harvest, apply phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, applying 60 g of monopotassium phosphate per pot.

Watering: After each topdressing, water thoroughly once; during the flowering period and young fruit period, prevent physiological flower and fruit drop caused by excessive moisture; during flower bud differentiation and fruit ripening, water should not be too much and should be slightly on the dry side; during fruit enlargement, the potting soil should be neither too dry nor too wet. During dormancy, watering must be strictly controlled, with the potting soil not being too dry as the limit.

Repotting: Because nutrients in the potting soil are leached away by frequent watering, repot in time every 2 years and replace with new nutrient soil.