High-quality and high-yield cultivation techniques for big cherry

Cherries are becoming increasingly popular among people because of their early maturity, bright color, rich nutrition and high economic benefits. Currently, growing cherries has become an important way for farmers to increase their income. However, because many fruit farmers lack management skills, the cherry yield is low and the benefits are poor. Let’s talk about the high-quality and high-yield cultivation technology of cherries.

1. Garden selection

Because the sweet cherry tree is a perennial deciduous fruit tree, the entire growth cycle needs to be considered when choosing a site and variety. This plays a decisive role in the growth, development, yield and quality of sweet cherries. Based on this, we must build cherry orchards to high standards in order to achieve high yield and high quality of cherries.

First of all, you should choose to plant in sandy loam or gravel loam that is sheltered from the wind and facing the sun, with a low groundwater level, deep soil, good permeability, and a pH value between 6.0 and 7.5. Many people may not know that cherry trees are water-loving fruit trees. When building a cherry orchard, you must fully consider the irrigation water source and irrigation conditions, and build the cherry orchard in a plot close to the water source and with watering conditions. Given that the ripening period of cherries is very concentrated and their storage tolerance is poor, cherry orchards should be located in areas that are close to sales locations and have convenient transportation. As for cherry varieties, common varieties such as Italian Rainier, Early Red, Pioneer, and Rabins are generally recommended. The ratio of main cultivated varieties to pollination trees should be 3:1. When the cherry orchard is small, the two varieties can each account for half, and the method of planting in alternate rows or alternate plants can be adopted.

2. Reasonable density planting

The planting of young cherry trees is generally divided into two methods: winter planting and spring planting. In areas with windy and dry winters, winter-planted seedlings are easily drained of water and have an extremely low survival rate. Therefore, it is best to choose spring planting to increase the survival rate of trees. The best time to plant cherries in spring is after the soil thaws and before the seedlings sprout, which is generally in mid-to-early March. In order to obtain high yield and quality, reasonable density of planting must be carried out according to fertility. On medium fertile soil, the recommended spacing between rows and plants is 4m x 4m, with 500-650 plants planted per hectare. At the same time, in order to enhance the lighting performance of the cherry tree, a north-south direction should be adopted.

3. Shaping and pruning

In order to make full use of the advantages of high germination rate and branching ability of big cherries, it is necessary to adopt a pruning method that mainly combines light pruning and summer pruning with promotion and control during the young cherry tree period. In order to prevent the polarization of branches, it is necessary to focus on pinching, carving buds and pulling branches. While accelerating the shaping of the tree, we will strengthen and improve the lighting conditions inside the tree to achieve the effect of slowing down the growth and promoting flowering. By means of pruning, the tree can be cultivated into three shapes: natural open heart shape, natural cluster shape or free spindle shape. After the cherry trees enter the peak fruit-bearing period, thinning must be the main approach, clearing the heads and opening the corners, and combining thinning and shrinking. While keeping the tree vigor moderate and strong, maintain a reasonable tree structure and group structure.

It should be noted that when thinning out large branches, it should be done immediately after fruit picking. Do not thin out large branches during winter pruning. The wounds cannot face upwards. Thinning should be thorough, and the wounds should be trimmed and leveled. It should be done in a planned manner and in batches to avoid weakening the tree vigor. Generally speaking, there are three ways to keep the tree vigor and maintain the structure. The first is to increase the degree of pruning of the main extension branches and the leading branches of the branch group, pruning them 2-3 leaf buds above the axillary flower buds at the base, so as to maintain relatively vigorous nutritional growth of the leading branches. The second method is to frequently lightly prune the 2-3 year old branches at the tips of the main branches, which effectively promotes the transformation of bouquet-shaped fruit branches into medium-long branches. The last one is to shorten the 2-3 year old branches at the tips of the perennial fruiting branches to fully promote branching, enhance the growth of cherry trees, increase the proportion of leaf buds in the branches, and rejuvenate the growth and fruiting ability of the branches.

4. Flower and fruit management

In the high-yield cultivation of big cherries, flower and fruit management is the most basic and most critical technology, which needs to be studied carefully.

(1) Bud thinning: Bud thinning of sweet cherry is usually carried out before flowering. The main task is to remove small and deformed flowers on weak fruit branches, leaving only 2-3 full and strong buds on each bouquet-shaped fruit branch. The fruit thinning of cherries is generally carried out after physiological fruit drop, and small fruits, deformed fruits and poorly colored drooping fruits need to be thinned out. The requirement is to keep 3-4 fruits for one bouquet-shaped fruit branch, and no more than 5 at most.

(2) Promote fruit coloring: Pick leaves. On the basis of reasonable shaping and pruning, during the cherry fruit coloring period, all leaves that block the fruit from sunlight should be removed. However, it should be noted that the leaves on the fruit branches play an important role in the differentiation of flower buds, so avoid picking too many leaves. Lay reflective materials; 10-15 days before the cherry fruits are harvested, lay reflective film under the tree canopy to enhance the light exposure of the fruits and promote full coloring of the fruits.

(3) Preventing fruit cracking: The first thing is to stabilize the soil moisture conditions. During the period from the cherry fruit hard core stage to the second rapid growth period, the moisture content in the soil 10-30 cm deep must be kept stable at around 12%. Secondly, spray calcium salts before harvesting. Before harvesting, 0.299% calcium chloride solution needs to be sprayed once a week, for a total of 3-5 times. This can effectively increase the soluble solids content in the fruit and reduce the occurrence of fruit cracking.

5. Soil, fertilizer and water management

When starting to plant big cherries, cultivation measures should be taken to level the planting land, dig planting trenches according to the variety of big cherry plants, and ensure that the depth of the planting trenches is 70-90 cm. At the same time, in order to ensure sufficient nutrient supply for the cherry plants during their growth, about 40 cm of crop straw should be laid at the bottom of the planting ditch, covered with an appropriate amount of soil, and nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers should be applied as base fertilizer for cherry tree planting.

Because the cherry tree is a plant species that has high requirements for water. Therefore, during the actual planting and growth process of big cherries, it is necessary to always maintain sufficient moisture in the soil to minimize the phenomenon of water shortage in the big cherry plants during the growth process. There are essential differences in the growth conditions of cherry trees in different seasonal months. Based on this, in the process of fertilizing big cherry plants, it is necessary to adjust the fertilizer ratio according to the actual growth status of big cherry to ensure the improvement of big cherry fertilization effect, which is ultimately beneficial to the formation of quality and yield.

6. Disease prevention and control

The diseases commonly encountered during the cultivation of sweet cherries include: cherry brown spot, bacterial punch hole, cherry leaf spot, gummosis, root cancer, root and stem rot and viral diseases. Among them, viral disease is the most common disease in cherries, and it seriously affects the quality and yield.

The principle of prevention and control of sweet cherry virus disease is to mainly strengthen water and fertilizer management, improve tree vigor and its own disease resistance, and use drugs to enhance the disease resistance and toxin inhibition capabilities of sweet cherry.

Specific measures:

(1) After picking the big cherries, immediately use 800 times diluted "Hai Zhuangyuan 818" foliar fertilizer plus 1500 times diluted "Ao Luojia" seaweed essence to spray the leaves. At the same time, mix it with 0.3% potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution and spray it. Generally, spray it once every 10-15 days, and it needs to be sprayed about 3 times in a row.

(2) After the fruits are harvested, inter-cultivation and topdressing should be carried out within one month. About 3 kg of seaweed organic and inorganic mixed fertilizer was applied to each tree. If conditions permit, you can use 2 kg of seaweed microbial fertilizer and mix it in by digging a ring ditch or a radial ditch. The depth of the ditch should not exceed 30 centimeters.

(3) After applying fertilizer, water the soil immediately. When the water seeps down and dries slightly, till the soil immediately. The tillage depth should be 10 cm, not too deep.

(4) When the flower buds begin to sprout in the spring, spray the branches and trunks according to the above-mentioned foliar spraying method, once every 10 days, and continue spraying for about 3 times.

That’s it