What are the common problems in fruit tree training and pruning?
Fruit trees are a type of economic tree species. There are now hundreds of thousands of known fruit tree species, and various fruit trees have different planting areas in our country. When planting fruit trees, training and pruning work is very important for their growth. Reasonable training and pruning can improve the permeability of fruit trees, promote their growth, and increase the flowering and fruiting rate. However, many friends do not have a correct pruning method and have many problems. Below, the editor will introduce some of the common problems everyone has when pruning fruit trees!
1. Main branches too low
In many orchards now in the full fruiting period, the selected positions of the three main branches at the base of the fruit trees are no more than 30 cm from the ground. This is very unfavorable for the growth of fruit trees, because if the main branches are selected too low, it will not only hinder soil and pest and disease control management work. It will also reduce the flowering and fruiting rate and affect fruit quality. Especially if the main branches at the lower end of the fruit tree are too close to the roots, their nutrient and water absorption will be excessive, causing the lower branches to grow excessively. The branches of the fruit tree will show a phenomenon of strong lower growth and weak upper growth, seriously affecting planting benefits.
2. Uneven growth
The uneven growth of fruit tree branches is caused by inconsistent growth progress of the main branches selected in the current year or in the two years before and after. This difference will become more and more obvious as time goes on. If such branches are not pruned in time to adjust branch growth, it will cause water sprout branches to grow more vigorously, while the opposite will become weaker. The difference in growth capacity between branches will become greater and greater, so when pruning and selecting main branches, we should pay attention to whether the branches grow in a balanced way and must not blindly choose large branches or vigorous branches. Otherwise, it will cause the number of large branches to increase uncontrollably, consume too many nutrients, and lead to a serious decline in the flowering and fruiting rate.
3. Improper handling of competing branches
Many friends, when selecting and retaining main branches, will use competing branches as main branches. Competing branches are the backbone branches on fruit trees, and their growth capacity is very strong. In addition, the angle between competing branches and the trunk is very small. If no work such as pinching and bud removal is done on competing branches in summer, and they are also selected as main branches, then their growth capacity will be very strong, management will be very troublesome, and it will lead to unbalanced growth among the main branches. Moreover, the base angle between them and the trunk is very small. If a large amount of fruit is borne, when picking or encountering strong wind, it is very easy to cause cracking at the base. Therefore, we should prune competing branches reasonably to avoid affecting the future growth of fruit trees.
4. Failure to distinguish main branches from auxiliary branches
When pruning auxiliary nurturing branches, they should be retracted and removed in time, and then their angles should be opened to prevent the auxiliary nurturing branches from growing longer and longer, which would lead to insufficient growth space for the main branches. If the phenomenon of failing to distinguish main branches from auxiliary branches occurs, the skeleton structure of the fruit tree will be very chaotic. Do not prune the tip of every branch you see, to prevent each branch from growing too heavily and there being no distinction between primary and secondary. Also, when cutting the tips of main branches, pay attention to pruning the tips of side branches to prevent the growth capacity of the main branches from being weaker than that of the side branches. Pay attention to pruning intensity to avoid the main branches being too weak and the auxiliary nurturing branches not playing an auxiliary role, which would seriously affect the growth of fruit trees.
The above are several common problems everyone has in fruit tree training and pruning. When pruning, you should also pay attention to branch bending, pruning distance, and the pruning intensity of main branches, etc. The pruning work of fruit trees is very important and also requires everyone to have a certain level of skill, so everyone must pay close attention. That is all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only, and I hope it can be helpful to everyone!