How to prune Chinese chestnut in winter

Question: how to trim Chinese chestnut in winter

Answer: winter is the golden season for chestnut pruning. Winter pruning refers to the period from the defoliation of chestnut trees to the period before spring germination. Chestnut winter pruning is generally divided into young tree pruning, adult tree pruning and old tree pruning.

1. Pruning young trees

The main purpose of young tree pruning is to form a tree shape with high quality and high yield, also known as shaping and pruning.

The commonly used tree shapes of chestnut trees are natural happy shape, delayed happy shape and trunk sparse layer shape. The tree shape of Chinese chestnut is mainly determined according to the variety, site conditions and planting density of Chinese chestnut. The varieties of Chinese chestnut in Yushan area are mainly red and chestnut, and the natural happy shape should be adopted.

Natural happy plastic surgery and pruning methods:

(1) in the year of planting, the grafted seedlings should be fixed at 60-70 cm.

(2) in the second year of planting, three sturdy branches are selected as the main branches, the angle between the main branches is about 120 degrees, and the angle between the main branches and the centerline of the trunk is 30-45 degrees, and the distribution is uniform.

(3) in the third year of planting, there were 2-3 secondary main branches in each main branch.

2. Adult branch pruning

The key to adult tree pruning is to adjust the relationship between growth and fruit, so that the tree potential is moderate, high quality and high yield.

The pruning method of Chinese chestnut adult tree is mainly thinning, cutting off long branches, overlapping branches, cross branches, dense branches, parallel branches, thin and weak branches, disease and insect branches. According to the growth of chestnut trees, it is required to do: light pruning of strong trees, heavy pruning of weak trees, weak pruning of strong branches and strong pruning of weak branches. Selectively and moderately cut off the growing branches and fruiting mother branches.

3. Pruning old trees

Aged chestnut trees should be renewed and pruned in time to rejuvenate the tree. Update pruning is mainly truncated and retracted pruning. Mild senescence tree, cut off the upper part of the big branch: severe aging tree, retract to the middle or lower part of the strong branch growth site. Cut off dead branches, disease and insect branches.