Exploring Winter Care of Fruit-Bearing Flowers and High-Yield Cultivation Techniques for Edible Fungi
As the New Year approaches, various fruit-bearing flowers come onto the market in a colorful array: orange-red calamondin, golden Buddha's hand, bright goji berries, and glossy winter red berries. The fruiting period of these fruit-bearing flowers lasts three to four months at most, or more than two months at least, symbolizing good fortune and prosperity, and they are popular with people. The following points should be noted when caring for these flowers in winter.
Temperature: Fruit-bearing flowers can be divided into cold-hardy flowers and cold-tender flowers according to their cold tolerance. Because cold-tender flowers are sensitive to low temperatures, they grow poorly in low temperatures, with stems and leaves turning yellow and withering, and fruits becoming soft and rotting, losing their ornamental value. Therefore, for some cold-tender fruit-bearing flowers, keep the nighttime temperature at around 10°C and the daytime temperature at around 15°C. In this way, the plant's branches and leaves remain upright and the fruits plump and vivid. Such flowers include citrus, Buddha's hand, Ardisia mamillata, and Ardisia crenata. Cold-hardy fruit-bearing flowers, because their plants have strong resistance to low temperatures, generally have no problem at around 0°C, and their stems, leaves, and fruits will not be damaged by freezing; they are not strict about ambient temperature, such as goji, winter red berry, pyracantha berry, and thornless Chinese holly.
Water: Water is an important component of fruits. Fruits lacking water have wrinkled skins and feel soft, and in severe cases become shriveled. Therefore, only by keeping the fruits sufficiently hydrated will they look firm, plump, and fresh. For ordinary flowers, we water thoroughly after the soil dries out, but for flowers already bearing fruit, the potting soil should be kept relatively moist, which is especially important for evergreen fruit-bearing flowers. This is because temporary water shortage causes the plant to develop a self-protective mechanism, transferring part of the water in the fruits to the stems and leaves for the plant's transpiration, thus causing the fruits to lack water. If the plant is short of water for a short time, the fruits can recover after watering; if short of water for a long time, even if watering can revive the stems and leaves, the fruits will still permanently lose water and become shriveled, losing their ornamental value. Common citrus, for example, sometimes when watering is forgotten, the plant's leaves become soft and the oranges develop wrinkled skin; after watering, the oranges still gradually shrivel and finally hang dry on the branches, greatly spoiling the scene. For citrus plants, we can often spray them with water to increase the humidity around them.
Sunlight: Fruit-bearing flowers are best placed in a well-lit spot, ideally with sunlight, especially for plants whose fruits are still greenish. This is because the more anthocyanins in the fruit, the more vivid and red the fruit; and anthocyanins' synthesis is strengthened by sunlight, enhancing the fruit's ornamental value.
Ventilation: During the fruiting period, fruit-bearing flowers should be kept in a place with good air circulation, which prevents the fruits from becoming stuffy and dropping prematurely.
Finally, fruit-bearing flowers are generally not fertilized in the middle and late fruiting stages; fertilizing will cause the fruits to drop and shorten the fruiting period. In winter, because of poor ventilation or excessively high temperatures in their environment, fruit-bearing flowers suffer from the activity and breeding of some pathogens and pests. For this phenomenon, ordinary fungicides and insecticides are sufficient; in addition, pay attention to ventilation and properly control the room temperature.