Surely at each dacha there is a couple of cherry trees with bright and juicy fruits.
These berries are not only a storehouse of vitamins in the summer, but also a wonderful delicacy for children and adults in the winter.
They are perfectly frozen, preserved and dried for the winter.
How to increase the fruitfulness of the tree and prevent it from becoming a victim of parasitic insects. In fact, everything is extremely simple, you need to know when, how and why you are doing it.
Detail on tree fertilizer
Fertilize cherry follows in the middle of autumnbecause this tree begins to delight us with its flowering one of the very first. Top dressing with various fertilizers (peat compost, bird droppings, humus, etc.) is necessary for him to give growth and strength.
Many amateur gardeners put off this event for the spring, which is completely wrong. The tree after fruiting is weakened and it needs to replenish the reserves of all the missing micro and macro elements. With a later fertilizer of the soil, the tree can not tolerate frosts due to the accelerated sap flow in it.
Top dressing used only subrooted, because the tree sheds its foliage, and the foliar saturation method becomes impractical.
When digging the ground in the area of the tree near-stem, add fertilizer that saturates the soil with useful substances and improves its fertility.
The quality and composition of fertilizers depends on the composition of the soil and the microclimate in the region. If on your site for the most part sandy soilthen cherries will need strong nutritionbecause from such a light soil the useful elements are more abundantly washed out than from the heavier clayey soil.
In the autumn, it is necessary to eliminate nitrogen-containing compounds, and the introduction of calcium, phosphorus and potassium into the soil will be the best option.
Sub food follows start after the whole crop is harvested, rotten fruit has been removed and the tree has been cleared of unhealthy and dry twigs. 30 kg of humus for young trees and 50 kg for trees older than 9 years old are introduced into well loosened (no more than 15 cm deep), soil cleared from weeds.
You can also connect the top dressing of a tree with watering after digging the soil. To do this, prepare such a solution: 3 tbsp. superphosphate + 2 tbsp. potassium sulfate per 10 liters of water. Watering should be sufficiently abundant., at least 15 liters of water under mature trees and 8 liters - under young trees.
One of the most popular and inexpensive types of fertilizer for cherry in the fall is chicken manure. But it should be remembered that its excess can lead to burns of the root system.
It is important to comply with the scheme preparation of chicken manure fertilizer. To do this, take 1-1.5 kg of chicken manure and place in a 10-liter bucket. Add about 4 liters of water there and leave for 2 days to ferment. After adding water to the edge of the bucket and mix thoroughly. Fertilizer is ready. In such a proportion it will not damage your garden.
The next most popular fertilizer is manure or compost. For this purpose, only rotten manure of 2-3 years old is used, which cannot be diluted, otherwise it will turn into an ammonia mixture.
For ideal fertile soil, it can be used as a fertilizer. nitroammofoski. it balanced fertilizer, which combines in its composition 4 components: sulfur, phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen. But for heavy clay soils with a lack of nutrients, only this fertilizer is indispensable. It must be used only in combination with other additives.
It is also interesting to read about the care and planting of felt cherries.
Handling wheel circles
Why is it so necessary to observe the dimensions of the wheel circle? Pristvolny circle fills the tree with all the factors necessary for its healthy growth: air, water, food.
The size of the circle of the trunk should be greater than the diameter of the crown of the tree, so its value changes every year. To calculate correctly dimensions of the wheelneed to measure crown diameter and multiply by 1.5. This will be the required diameter for a particular tree.
When digging in the autumn, it is necessary that the spade plane be along the radius of the trunk circle. If this rule is not followed, there is a risk of damaging large roots, which will then gain strength for a long time. You can also use special forks, but only on light, loose soil. The closer to the shtambu tree, the digging depth should be less. At the trunk - 7-8cm, and the rest of the area of a circle 10-12cm.
Pruning a Cherry in the Fall
It is simply necessary to prune the branches of the cherry tree, although some gardeners believe that stone trees do not need it. The meaning of pruning is that the tree directs its strength and energy not in the development of a dense crown, but on the abundance and quality of the crop.
So that your garden looks well-groomed and well fruited it is better to do pruning of branches in the autumn. In the spring, the branches that could not bear the severe frost are removed. Autumn pruning of cherries should start in mid-September and finish in early December.
Pruning can be called a kind of surgical intervention in the life of the tree. Therefore, you should consider some subtleties. It is especially important that the tree has already dropped the crown and was at rest.
But we should not forget that it is necessary to have time before the onset of the first frost, otherwise the tree will become weak and its frost resistance will decrease. Therefore, in the northern regions, pruning of trees is desirable to finish in September, and in the southern - it is possible to do this all autumn.
Depending on the age of the tree, pruning of cherries is done with a pruner or saw. Young trees are cut with a sharp knife, because pruner can damage them. Only planted seedlings in the first autumn do not need pruning, because they are just starting to form a crown and gain strength. If they are cut off, then with severe frosts the tree may die.
During pruning of adult trees, dry branches and branches affected by the disease are first of all removed to a lively uninjured place. All cut branches and discarded foliage must be burned to prevent reinfection of the tree and to prevent the spread of parasitic insects. This pruning is called preventive.
Also on adult trees should remove large branches and brancheswhich form an irregular crown, thin out the places of strong accumulation and interlacing of branches. This will improve the air supply of the tree and increase the penetration of sunlight to the fruit-bearing branches.
Also cut off the branches growing inside the crown, at a right angle and vertically upwards. For the formation of the correct crown and its clarification using the method of shortening - this is when the cut passes at the level of the kidney, and only the upper part of the shoot is removed.
If a tree has not been pruned for many years and has a dense, neglected crown, then it should be thinned for several years. Otherwise, global pruning will severely deplete and weaken the tree.
Mature trees should be cut once every 2–3 years, while young trees should be cut every year until the correct crown is formed. A feature of pruning young trees is that all shoots are cut off, and on the trunk there are several basic, evenly distributed branches.
When using the shortening method, in saplings of 2 years of age, the central branch is cut at a distance of 25 cm from the most distant point, and all lateral ones - at a distance of 35 cm from the extreme points.
You should not get involved in shortening the crown of trees, the trunks of which are affected by glass or black cancer. From this trees can die.
After the activities for pruning the cherries, the tree needs proper care, otherwise the cut points will slowly overgrow and there will be some cure.
Everything slices needed urgently treat with garden pitch, oil paint, linseed oil or antiseptic. The treatment with the anti-stress medication “Novosilom” in the proportion of 3 ml per 10 l of water will not be superfluous.
Some gardeners in preparing for pruning their garden take into account the recommendations of the lunar calendar. We present to your attention the main ones:
- the best option to carry out pruning with the departing moon;
- not very good if the moon is growing;
- good days preceding the new moon;
- and this should not be done a few days before the full moon.
Protect the cherry from the cold
Although cherry is considered to be a frost-resistant tree, it still needs protection from the cold along with other cultures.
A good top dressing in the fall will saturate the tree with useful elements and increase frost resistance. The main thing is not to overdo it because fertilizer oversupply strengthen sap flow that will reduce frost resistance.
By the end of the autumn, the near-stem circle should be mulched with compost or manure. This will not only be additional food for wood, but also increase its frost resistance.
It should be remembered that the thickness of the mulch should not exceed 10cm. If the winter is snowy, then a thick layer of snow gathered around the trunk and dragged on top of mulch from sawdust or straw will be the best protection for the root system.
note that the mulch should not touch the tree trunkotherwise, it will contribute to the subsidence and rotting of the bark.
At the end of autumn, knowledgeable gardeners wrap a cherry trunk with several layers of white paper, nonwoven covering material or white polypropylene bags. This will protect the tree from sunburns, which appear due to the fact that during the day the intense rays of the sun warm up the bark well, and at night there is a sharp decrease in temperature.
Also such harness can protect young treeswhitewash lime is contraindicated. You can also use cut stalks of raspberry, reed, fir twig, or blackberry for strapping.
Now about watering a tree
The amount of watering depends on how old the tree is. Young seedlings autumn is necessary water up to 15 times, and mature trees do not need such frequent watering. They need to be watered less often, but abundantly so that the moisture soaks the soil for at least half a meter.
The final watering should be carried out after digging and fertilizer near-stem circle. It must be very abundant, for which experienced gardeners even stick pipes in the ground. After that, the tree is no longer watered to reduce sap flow and prepare the tree for the winter period.
Protection from diseases and pests, whitewashing
To protect your garden from a huge number of various pests at the onset of the first frost, the trunk circle is sprayed with 5% urea solution.
Urea solution is a very high concentration of nitrogen fertilizer that can destroy most of the pests, fungal and infectious pathogens, and it also prevents their reproduction
The most common enemies of stone trees are the caterpillars of the gold-tails, the ringed silkworm, the haws, the cherry moth, the larvae of the cherry mucous sawfly and the cherry weevil.
They damage the kidneys, during their intensive swelling, actively feed them and small juicy leaves, break the leaf plate, spoil the flowers and the pulp of the berries.
If you still find a pest on a tree, you should immediately spray the trunk and branches with a solution containing an insecticide. Not bad helps and Cypermethrin, which has a wide spectrum of action. Cypermethrin is a part of such drugs as Cifox, Mustang, Arriro, Inta-Vira, etc.
Even with proper care, it is not always possible to protect the cherry orchard from diseases. An experienced gardener must be familiar with some of them in order to recognize in time:
- rust or coccomycosis. In this disease, the most vulnerable are young shoots and leaves, which are dotted with dark specks;
- monilioz.- leaves and flowers, as well as the bound fruits and branches dry;
- gamma treatment - die struck tree branches;
- perforated spotting - characterized by the fact that leads to the death of young buds, flowers and leaves;
- Fruit and gray rot - one of the most dangerous diseases of trees. At the first appearance of a dispute on the fruit, these sores spread very quickly throughout the garden.
That is why you should carefully prune trees and care for the garden in the fall. All harvested weeds, pruned branches and discarded foliage are collected in one place and completely burned. This will destroy all parasites and spores of various diseases.
One of the most famous universal and cheap pest control agents is iron sulfate. Thanks to him, it is possible not only to improve the fruiting, but also to restore old trees, to increase their frost resistance. However, it is necessary to know the desired concentration in order to obtain the desired effect.
To combat mosses and lichens, 5–7% solution of ferrous sulfate is sufficient. Inexperienced gardeners add lime to blue vitriol. This is wrong, and will lead to a negative result. Lime is added to blue vitriol. When treating trees with vitriol, consider the type of disease of each tree individually to prepare a solution of the desired concentration.
To get rid of pests, iron sulfate alone will not be enough. The solution of tobacco-shag also helps very well in this.
Distinctive the peculiarity of vitriol is that it not only helps to get rid of all kinds of lichen and mosses, but also contributes to increase the stock of fruit buds and the growth of new branches. That will significantly improve the fruitfulness and appearance of your garden.
We should not forget about large pests - hares and mice. To protect the trees from them, trunking with roofing felt or roofing felt, which are attached with wire, can be barbed. The main thing is that this protection should go deep into the soil, and the rodents could not get to the base of the tree.
You can also use a cylinder from a plastic bottle that is carefully dug into the ground so that the mice cannot damage the root system.
