How to plant and manage girl fruit?

The girl fruit is also called the wolfberry fruit or the brocade lantern. It is a very nutritious fruit with a high sugar content. It tastes crispy, juicy, fresh and crunchy. So how to plant and manage girl fruit? Let’s learn more about it below.

1. Land preparation

The girl fruit likes a loose and breathable growing environment. When planting, the field needs to be deeply plowed and carefully tilled to make the soil softer, and well-rotted farmyard manure should be mixed into the soil to promote the growth of the girl fruit's roots.

2. Germination

Before planting girl fruit, expose the seeds to the sun for 2 days, then soak the exposed seeds in 55℃ warm water for half an hour, pouring water and stirring during the process, and maintain a constant temperature for 30 minutes. Sun exposure can break the dormancy period of seeds, and soaking seeds in warm water can kill bacteria and disinfect them, which can greatly reduce the occurrence of diseases. After soaking the seeds in hot water, soak them in warm water for 12 hours. Then pick up the seeds and wrap them with wet gauze. Generally, the seeds will germinate in 3 to 5 days. When 70% of the seeds turn white, they can be sown.

3. Planting seeds

When sowing girl fruit, the field needs to be dug into strips and covered with plastic film on each ridge. Then the seeds are sown in the soil, covered with a layer of fine sand, and watered enough to make the girl fruit seeds completely moist. Water the seeds frequently within ten days after sowing, but don’t water them too much, as too much watering will easily cause the seeds to not germinate. Covering the seedlings with plastic film after sowing will help them grow evenly and strong. When the seedlings emerge from the soil, the plastic film should be removed in time to prevent them from being burned.

4. Thinning

When the seedlings grow 2 to 3 true leaves, thinning should be carried out, and they can be transplanted when they are 20 to 25 cm tall.

5. Transplanting

The transplanting field should be in a sunny area with fertile, loose soil and good drainage. Before transplanting, apply 2000 kg of fully decomposed farmyard manure and 30-40 kg of triple compound fertilizer per mu in combination with land preparation. The girl fruit is cultivated in large ridges, with a ridge height of 20CM, a ridge width of 80CM, and a distance of 40CM between ridges. The row spacing is controlled at 50CM, the plant spacing is controlled at 40, and about 3,500 plants are cultivated per acre.

6. Topdressing

Girl fruit is a crop that likes potassium fertilizer. During the flowering and fruiting period of the plant, 20 kg of potassium sulfate can be applied per mu, and 0.5% potassium dihydrogen phosphate can be sprayed once every 10 days for 3 consecutive times.

7. Control the prosperity

In order to achieve high yield of wolfberry fruit, the growth must be controlled. Therefore, when fertilizing the wolfberry plant, do not apply nitrogen fertilizer exclusively, and do not flood the plant with water. In addition, pinch the tips of the plants to inhibit apical dominance and promote reproductive growth. Pinching should not be done too early or too late. Generally, the tip can be pinched when the plant is 70CM tall. If the plant grows vigorously, you can spray paclobutrazol to inhibit internode elongation.

That’s it