Everything you need to know about planting a Manchurian nut and caring for it

A little-known walnut relative comes from the Far East. In its natural environment, it can be found in North China or on the Korean Peninsula. Manchurian nut grows like a tree in the wild, side by side with deciduous and coniferous species. This wonderful plant has many useful qualities. How to grow a full-fledged Manchurian nut, we consider below.

Manchurian Nut: tree description

Externally, the plant is similar to a walnut, but there are several differences. Manchurian walnut has a crown diameter of about one meter, the height of an adult plant is up to thirty meters. The barrel is flat, upright, with a sprawling rounded crown.

The leaves are complex, large, pinnate, the length of the leaf plate can grow up to a meter.On a sheet plate from 7 to 19 oval leaves up to 20 cm long are located. They are peaked with gear sides. The fruits of the tree are up to eight centimeters long, have a dense shell, oval in shape, fasten on branches up to seven pieces in a bunch. Fruit ripening lasts from August to October. The bark of young seedlings is smooth, gray in color, with time it becomes dark gray or blackens.

The plant begins to bear fruit after 4-10 years. Walnut forms both male and female flowers. Men are represented by long earrings, while women have the appearance of small tassels with a small amount of flowers. Walnut blooms no earlier than the end of April - early May.

Where is the best place to plant a nut?

Since the Manchurian nut grows a large tree, the area for planting should be appropriate. Landing is best done in such a way that nothing grows in diameter of ten meters from it.

Fruit trees growing too close to the Manchurian nut feel uncomfortable. Walnut loves light, moisture and does not tolerate drying out of the soil.

Manchurian Nut Growing

You can grow a Manchurian nut on your plot by propagating it with saplings, seeds or stock.

How and when to plant a nut

Manchu Nut Planting requires the fulfillment of several conditions:

seedlings are planted in the fall from mid-October to November; this plant grows best in autumn planting. The pit for the seedling should be deep with the use of drainage (stones, bricks, crushed stone);

a second layer after drainage is laid sod soil with the addition of sand and manure;

a support is applied to the seedling, the soil around the plant is compacted and flooded with water, and mulched. Mulch will not allow moisture to evaporate, which will prevent the freezing of the root system.

Nut reproduction

Manchurian nut is grown both from seed and saplings. Predominant is the cultivation of seedlings, because the tree will bear fruit in the fourth year after planting, unlike seeds (no earlier than 10 years).

Planting Manchurian walnut carried out in several ways of preparing planting material. The first way is to store the nut until spring in conditions of low temperature and low humidity. Before planting, the nuts are soaked in water for ten days. Water is periodically changed.

Second way - soak the nuts in water (30ºC) for a day. After soaking, the fruit is kept at a temperature not higher than + 5ºC for two to three months. Third way - hold the fruits for a month at a temperature of 20ºC and place them in the snow. Whatever method of preparation of planting material you choose, the final stage is planting seeds. The soil for planting seeds should be pre-plowed, watered and sprinkled with ashes.

The depth of seeding should not exceed seven centimeters, put nuts ribs. On one square meter planted no more than ten seeds. Autumn seedlings sprout two to three weeks earlier than spring. After a year, the seedlings can be moved to a permanent habitat.

In order for the nut to rapidly grow, its roots are cut a little. Seeds planted in the fall, germinate better than the spring, but they must be protected from mice by spraying before planting kerosene. It must be remembered that a plant grown from seeds may not carry the genetic code of the parent.If you do not burn with the desire to mess with seeds, you can plant a Manchurian nut or buy a ready-made seedling. Planting seedlings for better acclimatization is carried out in the winter.

The root system of the Manchurian nut is growing rapidly, so when planting a seedling at a permanent place, try to cause minimal damage to the roots. Manchurian nut with a broken root system does not take root.

The landing pit should be deep with the use of drainage. If you want to plant several seedlings at once, then the distance between them should not be less than ten meters. Since the root system of the Manchu nut is highly developed, it is planted away from any structures.

How to care for the Manchurian nut

The Manchurian walnut, like any other plant, requires that not only planting be properly implemented, but also care. Competently organized care is the key to a successful growth of the plant and a bountiful harvest.

How to water a Manchurian nut

Like any other nut, Manchu is unpretentious in the care:

• For normal development, a tree needs a sufficient amount of moisture. When the level of precipitation is normal, irrigation is carried out on young seedlings up to ten times per season, on old trees - twice as less. In drought trees weekly poured twenty liters of water.
• nuts do not like it when the moisture in the soil stagnates, so we carefully remove weeds and loose soil. To dry the soil less, mulch it.
• if precipitation is a frequent occurrence, watering is stopped until the soil is completely dry.
• when active growth ends and the tree blossoms, water less frequently, so that the young wood is ripe before winter.

Pruning and shaping the Manchurian walnut

As a rule, a Manchurian nut does not need crown formation. Removed to be dead or thickening the top of the shoots. Pruning is done in the spring, after the buds bloom. The following removal of dead and unnecessary shoots carried out in August.

Experienced gardeners form the crown of a Manchurian nut with a bush with a large number of trunks or make a palm tree out of it. Palm is more practical because it allows you to grow other plants under the tree.

Fertilizer and Nut Nutrition

Both young and old trees need fertilization in the second half of July. As a top dressing use agrochemicals containing phosphorus. Pour the diluted fertilizer under the root, spending on ten liters of water 15-20 g of phosphate fertilizer.

Manchurian Pest and Disease

Most often Manchurian nuts inconvenience gall mites and nut-pots, rarely - fungal diseases. When the disease fungi leaves turn black and dry. Control measures: treatment with copper-containing fungicides. Treated plants again in 10-14 days.

Gall mites overwinter in the kidneys, and in early spring they lay eggs in them. Females prolazyat in the center of the sheet, thereby damaging it. A sign of the appearance of gall mites is small mounds on the leaves. Affected plants are sprayed with colloidal sulfur before bud break and in summer by Fufanon.

A sign of damage to the walnut tree is the appearance of shoots on the bark, leaves and flowers of insects that have two pairs of wings. They fight this pest by spraying a solution of karbofos or chlorophos.