A Detailed Explanation of Kiwifruit Planting Techniques and Management Methods

Kiwifruit (scientific name: Actinidia chinensis Planch), also known as qiyiguo. The fruit is generally elliptical in shape, greenish-brown in appearance when young and reddish-brown when ripe, with the skin covered in dense fuzz; the flesh is edible, and inside is bright green flesh with a row of black or red seeds.

Planting techniques and methods

1. Slope and slope aspect

Kiwifruit is a light-loving fruit tree. When choosing an orchard site in mountainous areas, it is best to choose sunny south-facing, southeast-facing and southwest-facing slopes, with a slope generally not exceeding 30º, so as to facilitate later land preparation and trellis building and reduce the loss of soil moisture and nutrients.

2. Fertilization

Kiwifruit likes fertilizer but fears burning. The growth amount and growth vigor of kiwifruit determine the urgency of its demand for nutrients. Coupled with the prominent production mentality of pursuing yields exploitatively, once kiwifruit lacks inorganic nutrients it shows phenomena such as yellowing, small leaves and stopped growth;

Therefore, kiwifruit is relatively sensitive to nutrients, but its fleshy root system is also very sensitive to soil salt concentration (especially during sustained high temperature and drought), thus forming a new set of contradictions;

In view of this, production requires that fertilization of kiwifruit must grasp the principle of far, scattered and light, that is, the method of small amounts applied many times, which can both meet nutrient demand and avoid fertilizer damage. This is what is meant by kiwifruit liking fertilizer but fearing burning.

The annual fertilizer requirement for fertilizing kiwifruit is: in the early stage, the demand for the two elements N and K is large, and it is best to apply them as a base fertilizer after fruit harvest in autumn, with 5000kg/667 sq m of fertilizer, 243. mixed with 80kg/667 sq m of superphosphate.

3. Water

It likes water but fears waterlogging. The main reason is that kiwifruit is a broadleaf fruit tree, and especially in summer its leaf transpiration is very vigorous, so its water demand is relatively large. Therefore, in the three months of June, July and August, the soil moisture content is generally required to be maintained at 70%, which is ideal. But at the same time, the root system of kiwifruit is a fleshy root with strong respiration, requiring a relatively high oxygen content in the soil;

In production, many orchards have large numbers of trees dying in summer and autumn for unknown reasons; in fact, the trees were watered to death, soaked to death and drowned. Large kiwifruit trees will never die of drought, only of waterlogging.

Many fruit growers have experience that in summer, if it rains continuously, or if the land has just been watered and then rain falls, once the weather clears and the temperature quickly rises again, many kiwifruit trees immediately show wilting (commonly called xiaxiang by fruit growers). If not handled in time, the trees will soon die. This is the typical pattern of liking water but fearing waterlogging.

Kiwifruit has dense branches and leaves and a shallow root distribution, and is neither drought-resistant nor waterlogging-resistant. Therefore, kiwifruit orchards need irrigation and drainage equipment, such as irrigation ditches, drainage ditches, drip irrigation and sprinkler irrigation equipment.

For large fruiting trees, sprinkler irrigation is preferable. The distance between sprinklers should be such that the sprayed water can touch each other. For example, in France it is 24×21m, arranged in a triangle, with each sprinkler at 4-6 atmospheres of pressure.

The flowering period requires slightly dry climatic conditions, which is favorable for bees to pollinate. Therefore, during the 7-10 day flowering period it is not suitable to irrigate; instead, irrigate fully before flowering, generally in combination with fertilization.