Planting techniques of Apple trees

Apple is also a kind of high-yield fruit tree with strong adaptability to soil. generally, after proper improvement, apple can be cultivated in a piece of land, such as hillside thin land, beach sand wasteland and mild saline-alkali land. Apple can not bear fruit until 2-3 years after planting. The fruit growth period is 65-87 days for general early-maturing varieties, 90-133 days for middle-maturing varieties and 137-168 days for late-maturing varieties. In general, apples can have a lifespan of 15-50 years after planting.

Apple trees on planting conditions

1. Temperature: Apple likes cold, dry and sunny climatic conditions. it is generally believed that the average temperature of 12-18 degrees from April to October is the most suitable for apple growth. When the summer temperature is too high, when the average temperature is more than 26 degrees, the flower bud differentiation is poor, the fruit develops rapidly, and the fruit is not resistant to storage. The suitable coloring temperature of red varieties before maturity is 10-20 degrees. If the temperature difference between day and night is small and the night temperature is high, it is difficult to color. Compared with the climatic conditions in the north, especially the mid-ripe red varieties, there is a certain gap between the temperature and the optimum requirements, and the gap increases as far as the Yangtze River basin to the south.

2. Rainfall: the annual precipitation in the main apple producing areas of the world is about 500mm-800mm. During the period of flower bud differentiation and fruit ripening, dry air and sufficient sunshine are required, then the fruit surface is smooth, the color is rich, and the flower buds are full. If the rainfall is too much and the sunshine is insufficient, it is easy to cause excessive growth of branches and leaves, poor flower bud differentiation, low and unstable yield, serious diseases and insect pests and poor fruit quality. The annual precipitation in Huaibei area is about 800 mm, but the distribution is uneven, sometimes spring drought, summer drought or autumn drought occur, and rainfall is too concentrated in most years from July to August, so irrigation and drainage measures need to be strengthened.

3. Light: Apple is a light-loving tree species. Sufficient light is conducive to normal growth and fruit, and to improve the quality of fruit. Different varieties have different requirements for light. The annual sunshine hours in Huaibei area is more than 2000 hours, which can basically meet the needs of apple growth and development.

4. Soil: in terms of soil, apple is suitable for sandy loam with deep soil layer, good drainage and rich organic matter. Soil pH (PH) should be slightly acidic to neutral. When the soil is poorly ventilated, the root growth is hindered. When the PH7.8 is above, the phenomenon of element deficiency and chlorosis is easy to occur. The salt tolerance to soil is less than 0.15%.

Shaping and pruning of apple trees

1. Apple tree shaping: Apple tree shaping mainly advocates spinning shape, which results relatively early. It is a kind of tree shape advocated at present, with a height of 2.5-3.0 meters, a crown width of 1.8 meters, and a trunk height of 70 centimeters. It uniformly grows 10-15 main branches on the central trunk, regardless of hierarchy, the distance between the main branches is 15-20 cm, and is evenly distributed around. The opening angle of the main branch reaches 60-90 degrees. This kind of tree crown is easy to manage. If it blossoms in that year, it will bear fruit in two years, and its production can be greatly increased in three to four years.

2. Pruning of apple trees

① spring pruning: from sprouting to flowering, the pruning tasks are completed by means of bud wiping, branch thinning, retraction, sprouting, ring peeling and other measures. Young orchards also include pruning tasks such as branch pulling.

② summer pruning: the techniques of opening angle, coring, twisting, ring peeling, thinning and ring cutting are adopted to ease the tree potential, improve the light and expand the tree crown.

③ autumn pruning: through drawing branches, thinning erect branches, overgrowing branches, dense branches and over-dense peripheral shoots and other measures to improve light conditions, promote flower bud differentiation, and improve the cold resistance of trees.

④ dormancy pruning: pruning from falling leaves in winter to before sprouting in spring. The main task is to remove some useless branches, such as disease and insect branches, dense branches, overgrown branches and so on. The method is to cut short backbone branches, retract over-large fruiting branches, auxiliary branches and weak backbone branches. Its function is to adjust the angle and extension direction of backbone branches, auxiliary branches and fruiting branches, control the proportion of flower leaves and buds, and balance tree potential, so as to achieve the purpose of high yield and high yield.

Fertilizer and Water Management of Apple trees

1. Fertilization management: fertilization is generally divided into two types: accumulated fertilizer and topdressing, and the specific time depends on the variety, the law of fertilizer requirement and the growth and fruit of the tree. In general, it is appropriate to apply fertilizer four times in a year.

① pre-flowering fertilizer or sprout fertilizer (early April).

② fertilizer after anthesis (mid-May). These two fertilizers can effectively promote sprouting and flowering, prevent de-fertilization due to the consumption of a large amount of nutrients by flowering, increase the fruit setting rate and promote the growth of new branches.

③ flower bud differentiation and young fruit expansion fertilizer (end of May to early June). The purpose of this topdressing is to meet the needs of fruit expansion, branch and leaf growth and flower bud differentiation. Potash is the main fertilizer this time.

The best period of ④ fertilizer application was autumn (early and middle September). When using farm manure as the main fertilizer, all phosphorus is applied according to the total amount of phosphorus in the whole year. In order to give full play to the fertilizer effect, phosphate fertilizer should be accumulated and ripened together with organic fertilizer, and then mixed and applied evenly.

2. Flower and fruit management

① technology for promoting flowers of young trees: trees with normal growth or Peiwang can also use growth regulators to promote flowers in addition to the above-mentioned spring sprouting, summer ring peeling and autumn branch pulling. In the early, middle and autumn shoot growth periods, spraying 0.2% ethephon at the concentration of 0.15% and 0.2% respectively for 2-3 times can effectively inhibit growth and promote flowers. If it is sprayed alternately or mixed with ethephon, the effect is better. In addition, the soil application of paclobutrazol 0.5 g / m ~ 2-0.75 g / m ~ 2 (refers to the effective ingredient, equivalent to 15% paclobutrazol wettable powder 3.3 g / m ~ 2-5 g / m ~ 2) before and after falling leaves in autumn to sprouting in the early spring of the following year, uniform withdrawal and application in the tree plate, or digging a ring below the crown for water application, also has a good effect on promoting flowers. It can also spray 0.1% Mel 0.15% paclobutrazol solution on the leaf when the new shoots begin to grow, which is also effective for promoting flowers. At the same time, we should do a good job of protecting leaves and roots in autumn, and good vegetative growth is the basis of promoting flowers and early fruit.

② improves fruit setting: in years with bad weather and few flowers, artificial pollination or bee release at the beginning of apple blossom can ensure fruit setting. For trees with many flowers or in many flowering years, re-pruning when flower buds expand and blossom, including removing weak and staying strong, blocking flower shears for flower branches, and shearing for short fruit branches and thinning flower buds can not only improve the fruit rate and increase the fruit, but also benefit the fruit stage branches to form flower buds, so it is also an effective measure to overcome the size of the year. Boron spraying at flowering stage in boron deficient orchard has a significant effect on improving fruit setting rate.

③ thinning of flowers and fruits: from the beginning to the end of blooming, excessive inflorescences and flowers are thinned as required, and too many young fruits are removed 4 weeks after flowering, which is a necessary measure to prevent or overcome the annual fruit of apples. According to the leaf-fruit ratio standard, generally master (30-40): 1, according to the branch-fruit ratio (nutrition branch / fruit branch) standard, the marshal department is (3-4): 1, Golden Crown is 3:1, Guoguang is (2-3): 1. The proportion of weak trees should be increased appropriately. In general, there is one inflorescence for every 6-7 inflorescences, which can basically reach the standard of leaf-fruit ratio of (30-40): 1. In order to improve the thinning efficiency, making use of the irregularity of apple flowering, that is, the first central flower has been pollinated and fertilized while the lateral flower and eye bud flower bloom later, Baume 0.5-1 degree stone sulfur mixture was used for chemical flower thinning in the later stage of full flowering, which can be widely used in production after experiment.

④ prevents pre-harvest fruit drop: some apple varieties, such as Marshal, Hongxing, Hongyu, Fengyan, Tianjin Light, etc., have serious pre-harvest fruit drop. Spraying fruit clusters 1-2 times in 30-40 days and 20 days before harvest with the solution of 20/1000000 to 40/1000000 (20PPM-40PPM) concentration of tea acetic acid or pro-acetate sodium can effectively reduce fruit drop.

⑤ prevents fruit rust and fruit cracking: the fruit rust of Golden Crown apple is an important factor affecting the commercial value of the fruit, which mainly occurs within one month after flowering. Rainfall, high relative humidity and spraying Bordeaux liquid will aggravate the formation of fruit rust. Although the anti-rust effect of bagging is good, it is difficult to be used in a large area. Using other agents instead of Bordeaux solution to prevent disease within 1 month after flowering can reduce the formation of fruit rust. In addition, strong trees can also reduce the occurrence of fruit rust. Fruit cracking is a common phenomenon in Guoguang apple varieties in Huaibei region, which reduces the commercial value of fruit. 0.5% CaCl2 solution can be sprayed twice 1-3 weeks before fruit harvest, which has an obvious effect on preventing fruit cracking. In addition, light fruit cracking varieties such as Fuji can be selected to replace Guoguang.