Winter pruning method for planting figs

According to the characteristics of fewer branches and stronger growth potential of fig, in the young tree shaping period, in order to rapidly increase the number of branches, expand the crown, promote flower formation and early fruit, the pruning amount should be appropriately light; later, with the increase of age, the number of branches gradually increases, the growth potential gradually weakens, and light pruning is continued, which is easy to affect the light and is not conducive to the growth and development of the bearing mother branch, which will reduce the bearing position and affect the yield. After shaping, the main task of winter pruning is to maintain the tree shape.

The extended branches of the main and lateral branches should be appropriately shortened; in order to maintain the growth balance between the main and lateral branches, the weak branches should be appropriately cut and kept; the large branches crossing or parallel to each other in the crown should be appropriately thinned so as not to affect each other. The excessive long branches sprouted from rhizosphere, base of big branches or near wound, lacking branches or having large space, can be cultured as fruiting mother branches or used for regeneration, and those that cannot be utilized should be thinned as soon as possible. Fig 1-year-old branches, except long branches, almost all can become fruit mother branches and bear fruit branches, if the fruit mother branches are all retained, they can affect each other due to too dense, choose excellent to bad, properly thinning too dense branches and thin branches. After the terminal bud of some varieties extends, several buds under it can also be taken out of the vigorous new shoots, from which 1 to 2 new shoots with suitable orientation and strong growth can be selected, and the redundant ones can be thinned out; but for the varieties with weak germination ability, it is not necessary to thin out, but by shortening, promote the germination of new branches in the middle and lower parts, and prevent the fruit parts from moving out too quickly. The varieties dominated by autumn fruits have long bearing branches, late fruit bearing and heavy fruit dropping. Under the condition of sufficient bearing branches, these long bearing branches can be thinned out, but if the number of bearing branches is insufficient, they can also be used for bearing fruit. Mature earlier varieties, terminal buds on the new shoots of fruit maturity is also early, fruit is also large, such fruit branches generally do not cut short. For other varieties, there is no need to pay special attention to retention, that is, short, it will not affect the yield. Because this kind of fig new shoot, except the base 1~2 buds less flowering, the rest of the shoot more flowers and fruits.

The fruiting parts on the main and lateral branches of figs will gradually move outward with the growth of age, resulting in emptiness at the base. In order to stabilize the fruiting area and delay the speed of outward movement of fruiting parts, the weak lateral branches and auxiliary branches can be thinned from the base to promote the germination of new shoots from latent buds and enrich the base. These new shoots germinated from latent buds can also flower and bear fruit in the same year, but the fruit quality is poor. Fig shoots are very easy to flower and bear fruit, so the purpose of thinning weak branches is mainly to rejuvenate and renew, not just to promote new shoots and fruit.