Pruning Fruit And Berry Crops And Thinning Vegetables Have A Positive Effect On The Yield

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Thinning is good for plants

If you closely follow the recommendations in the periodicals on gardening and horticulture, you can find two mutually exclusive points of view on the relationship of plant density with the yield of horticultural crops.

Some authors, which are the majority, strictly adhere to the conclusions of the classic of our science K. A. Timiryazeva: "… every ray of the sun not caught by the green surface of plants is a wealth that has been lost forever." At the same time, such authors are looking for ways to reduce the density of plants in every way and maximize the illumination of the leaf apparatus.

Another group of authors believes that in conditions of thinning of plants, an excess amount of nitrates enters them, since the reserves of the latter in the soil are distributed between a smaller number of plants and, without being involved in the growth process, accumulate in plant tissues and in the harvest.

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My many years of experience and the observations of the owners of neighboring plots strongly support the first point of view. Our observations have shown that the thicker the leaf apparatus of fruit and berry crops in the garden, the greater the likelihood of shading in their crowns, stagnant air and an increase in humidity. In this case, as a rule, it is impossible to avoid the appearance of various pests and diseases on the plants, a decrease in the intensity of photosynthesis, the volume of ovaries and the total yield.

Trying to protect themselves from diseases and pests, many summer residents and gardeners practice the treatment of crowns with pesticides. However, even this does not always help, since the sprayer jet is not able to penetrate the dense leaf canopy, and the inside of the crowns is poorly processed, and the tops of tall trees are often completely out of reach. All this leads to the fact that the loss of fruits and berries in some years reaches 50-70%.

Now I no longer doubt that a radical way out of this situation is timely pruning of trees and shrubs, in which dry, weak and diseased branches are removed first of all, and after that thinning and reduction of the crown is already underway. For example, in my garden, with the help of just such measures taken in the early spring period, I managed to completely heal one of the neglected plums, and it not only bloomed profusely, but also gave a good harvest a year earlier. A similar situation was repeated with one of the gooseberry bushes, and another bush placed next to it, which had not been processed, did not even bloom. I would also like to emphasize that in both cases the tree and the bush provided the laying of flower buds for the next year's harvest.

Thinning of plants as an effective agricultural technique for creating favorable conditions for their growth, development and fruiting is also necessary for vegetable crops. However, in a vegetable garden, in contrast to a garden, some thickening of plants during the initial period of their growth is favorable. This is due to the fact that plants occupy a small area, do not interfere with each other, grow faster from mutual warming and are less susceptible to disease. Growing up, plants from a certain point begin to fight for light, nutrition and moisture. To help them, most vegetable crops are thinned twice. In this case, thinning is combined with weeding. The first and second thinning is carried out when the plants appear, respectively, 2-3 leaves and 4-6 leaves, and the interval between these procedures is on average one month. After the second thinning, the distance between the plants increases in comparison with the first 2-3 times. I want to remind novice gardeners,that when thinning, weak plants are removed first, and the strongest remain.

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I have been convinced of the effectiveness of this thinning of vegetable crops many times, caring for the plants in my beds. For example, when growing cucumbers and tomatoes in glass greenhouses, I introduced into practice the obligatory removal of the entire leaf apparatus in the near-ground zone of plants and mulching the soil with fresh sawdust after watering and loosening. Moreover, in both cases, such actions turned out to be very useful for plants, since not only their illumination from the sun's rays reflected by sawdust increased, but also their ventilation improved. The situation was different last year. On a high, warm bed, prepared for growing squash and squash under a film, the seeds did not sprout for a very long time. Without waiting for shoots, I planted seedlings of the same plants borrowed from neighbors between the seeds. Later my seeds also sproutedbut I did not have time to do the thinning. As a result, in a thickened planting, more than a third of the plants did not bloom, and the yield was much lower than in previous years.

As for the second group of authors, who declare an increase in the amount of nitrates in the crop with sparse planting of plants, this point of view has not been confirmed by any experiments. On the contrary, there are very reliable results of research by specialists in this field, indicating an increase in the content of nitrates in plants grown in compaction plantings, in the shade and even under films in greenhouses. However, you should not be afraid of nitrates either in these or in other cases, since according to V. Ludilov, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, the permissible dose of nitrates (5 mg per 1 kg of weight) will be exceeded only if about 5-8 kg of various vegetables