Peach Tree Planting and Cultivation Methods and Key Technical Points

(1) Seedling raising and planting. For graft propagation, use wild peach rootstock; the seeds undergo stratification treatment and are broadcast sown in winter; bud grafting is done from June to August, or cleft grafting in early spring of the following year; the following winter the saplings can be lifted from the nursery. The planting spacing is 4 m x 5 m or 3 m x 4 m, with 500-840 trees planted per hectare. Planting can be done anytime from after leaf fall to before bud break. A peach orchard must not be continuously cropped, otherwise young trees will show noticeably weak growth, leaf chlorosis, new roots turning brown with many forks, and gumming on the branches and trunk. This continuous-cropping intolerance is more severe in sandy soil or soil with low fertility. The main cause is that the residual roots of the previous crop decompose in the soil and produce toxic substances such as benzaldehyde and hydrocyanic acid, which inhibit and poison the root system; it is also related to the multiplication and accumulation of nematodes in the soil under continuous cropping.

(2) Fertilization. The ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium required by peach is approximately 1:0.5:1. For young trees, care must be taken to control the application of nitrogen fertilizer, otherwise excessive vegetative growth is easily induced. After entering full fruiting stage, increase nitrogen fertilizer to strengthen tree vigor. The potassium content in peach fruit is 3.2 times that of nitrogen, so increasing potassium fertilizer results in larger fruit and higher yield. Fruiting trees are fertilized 3 times a year: base fertilizer is applied in October-November together with deep soil cultivation, mainly organic fertilizer, accounting for 50% of the annual fertilization amount; fruit-swelling fertilizer is applied from late April to May during the fruit pit-hardening stage; for early-maturing varieties, potassium fertilizer is mainly applied, while for mid- and late-maturing varieties nitrogen accounts for 15%-20% of the annual amount, phosphorus accounts for 20%-30% and potassium accounts for 40%; post-harvest fertilizer is applied before or after fruit harvest, with the application amount accounting for 15%-20% of the annual total. In addition, the peach orchard needs frequent intertillage and weeding to keep the soil loose, and timely drainage to prevent waterlogging and root rot.

(3) Training and pruning. Most are trained into a natural open-center shape. The trunk is headed at a height of about 60 cm, leaving 3-4 main branches, with the main branches opened at an angle of 50°-60°; each main branch may retain 1-2 sub-main branches as appropriate, and as few small branches as possible should be kept on the main and sub-main branches. Pruning periods include winter pruning and summer pruning. Although initially fruiting trees (3-4 years after planting) have already borne fruit, they grow vigorously with many water sprouts and densely growing shoots, so summer pruning measures such as bud removal, pinching and shoot twisting are needed to suppress the strong and support the weak, maintaining tree balance; for peach trees in full fruiting stage, because of many years of fruiting, tree vigor has tended to moderate, water sprouts and secondary shoots are markedly reduced, and the proportion of medium and short fruit branches increases, so heading back should be the main approach, and overly dense branches and strong terminal branches should be removed to improve light conditions among the shoots; weak and declining branches should be renewed in time.