Apricot fruits are unusually healthy and tasty. Traditionally apricot is perceived as a southern fruit tree. However, breeding developments created trees for various climatic zones with excellent reproductive indicators and productivity. Why is apricot have such a large number of amateurs, because caring for it involves the necessary efforts?
What is important apricot?
Apricot fruits are an excellent basis for juices, jams and marmalads. Admirers know that many alcoholic beverages are preparing from it, including liquors. Proper nutrition involves regular consumption of dried apricots. It is no longer possible to imagine modern pharmaceuticals and cosmetology without apricot seeds, from which oil, creams, masks and scrubs are made. The fruits of apricot consist of a large amount of vitamins, fruit acids that have a beneficial effect on the human body.
However, even such a healthy fruit has a limitation for a number of people who have diseases of diabetes (apricot pulp contains a large amount of sugar) or gastroenterological diseases.
The simplicity of the apricot planting
Most gardeners cannot imagine their garden without a tree apricot, which requires enough effort and personal time during its planting and care. However, adhering to certain recommendations, this will not be a special problem.
If you doubt how to plant apricot (with a bone or cuttings?), then experienced gardeners say that everyone will suit beginners.
Recommendations of apricot planting from a bone
The choice of planting material is carried out on the basis of moments that determine the further growth and development of wood. For this, the bones should be taken from the trees that grow in the area of its landing. In this case, the selected fruit should be completely ripe, without illness and slightly supported. Bones are removed from such a fetus, which are soaked in slightly warm water for 24 hours.
Planting material is planted in places protected from winds and well -lit. This must be done in the spring, putting the bones in the beds to a depth of 6 cm, with a step of at least 10 cm. Planting is completed with plentiful watering.
At the stage of germination of bones, the bed is periodically plucked, loosened and watered. It is also necessary to carry out soil top dressing with diluted manure, potassium and nitrate. Charol ash and wood chips can be added to the ground. Such care contributes to the formation of powerful shoots that can bear excellent fruits.
The formed seedlings are transplanted to a permanent place at the age of 2 years, in the fall 10-15 days before frost. So seedlings will be able to winter and in the spring give a good increase. Such seedlings give the first crop for 5-6 years.
Planting an apricot with cuttings
Cuttings for seedlings are harvested during the second half of June and the first half of July. Planted prepared cuttings in the second half of September to frost, but before that they are preparing.
Prepare a place for planting cuttings. To do this, make a small groove of the required length, 85 cm wide and up to 0.5 meters deep. At the bottom of the grooves up to 5 cm thick, broken brick is laid in equal parts, which is covered with river sand. Next, prepare a soil mixture of the same sand, a fertile layer of soil and manure (rotted) in the ratio: 1: 3: 1 and 1/5 of the part of the wood ash. The prepared mixture is evenly distributed in the groove, compacted and spilled with water-Marganese solution.
Cuttings are harvested from the most powerful branches of the parental tree of the current year. The stalk is cut out with 3-2 internodes on which there are a pair of leaves. The upper cut is made perpendicular to the growth of the barrel at a distance of up to 10 mm above the kidney, the base is cut under the bevel. After that, the cuttings are placed in a vessel with a liquid growth stimulant for 15 hours. In this case, the ambient temperature should be at least 24 degrees.
The landing of cuttings in the groove is made so that the base reaches slightly to the laid sand. At the end, the cuttings are covered with a soil mixture so that the upper bud with the leaves is above the ground. A small greenhouse from the film is installed over the cuttings, which is sprinkled with earth on three sides, and the fourth is pressed by the load.
Further departure involves the creation of an optimal humid environment, which is achieved by spraying cuttings, not land. After signs of growth of cuttings appear, the greenhouse is removed and feeding with a liquid aqueous solution of manure in a ratio of 1: 6, relying for at least 7 days.
The success of the apricot planting is based on preliminary preparation, which involves the study of the theory and collecting experience of gardeners. Garden inventory and necessary materials should also be prepared to be prepared to plant an apricot.
Optimal conditions for the growth of the apricot tree
Apricot trees grow perfectly on loamy and neutral soils with the content of carbonate compounds, nitrogen, humus, potassium and second. Apricot grows poorly on heavily loamy soils. The native of the apricot is the southern countries. Therefore, the place for its growth should be well -lit and with reduced humidity. These trees do not like draft. The usual fence or hedge is perfect for protection. If the fence is used to protect, then it should often be painted white, which evenly distributes the sun’s rays and increases the intensity of the temperature regime. All this increases the yield of trees.
Apricot Trees Care
Independently grown tree seedlings adapt to the growing conditions. The actual care is reduced to clearing and forming the crown of the tree, as well as its top dressing and watering. Watering is best done late in the evening or early in the morning. It should be unfulfilled, but frequent enough. On very arid days, water spraying of the ground part of the tree is recommended, which is best done late in the evening.
Top dressing is carried out by a ground application of liquid nutrient solutions. It is usually recommended to carry out such top dressing no more than once a year, starting from 2 years of wood growth. The most optimal option is to use a comprehensive fertilizer introduction, which include minerals. It is better to make them 2 times a year (spring, autumn). Pulling in the basal zone of manure, compost or peat is carried out in the form of a soil mixture, but not more than once for 3-5 years.
Apricot perfectly tolerates the clearing and trimming of the crown, which must be carried out in the spring and autumn. During it, patients and damaged branches, as well as vertical processes are removed.
Due to the specific structure of the cortex for the winter, the trunk must be covered with a solution of lime, which provides protection against insects and rodents. Whitewashing should be carried out to a height from the ground to the first fork. In the snow winters, a snowdrift can be built around a tree, which will protect it from winter pests, and also make the tree resistant to frost, and will provide it with the necessary moisture.
Apricot blooms very early. For this reason, he is afraid of spring frosts. For this reason, it is necessary to select varieties that are approaching the climatic conditions of the growth zone according to the phases of the growing season. It should also be noted that the tree bark does not tolerate high humidity and bake. In order to avoid the disease of the tree bark in the fall, it is necessary to clean the fallen leaves in the basal zone.
