Why Don't Walnut Trees Bear Walnuts
This article introduces the reasons why walnut trees don't bear walnuts and the top 5 reasons for walnuts not setting fruit in the aspect of green plants and flowers. It's some very useful knowledge, so it's recommended to save it for later reference!
In the daily management of walnut orchards, how to solve the problem of walnut trees not setting fruit varies with the different causes. The specific operations can be divided into several types:
1. The issue of non-fruiting in seedlings
Many fruit trees, when planted from seeds, do not bear fruit or have greatly varying quality, which is known as "seedlings". If the walnuts do not bear fruit due to this situation, there is only one method—grafting. Grafting is simple; just choose a good walnut variety and you can do it yourself.
2. Old trees that used to bear fruit no longer do
This is not only true for walnut trees but also for apple trees and others, which have the issue of aging and not bearing fruit or poor fruit quality. The method to make old trees bear fruit is also simple. First, check the roots and vitality of the old trees. If they are still usable, you can adopt the method of nourishing the roots to strengthen the trees, improve the soil's fertility, allow the roots to breathe freely, and revitalize the old walnut trees, or directly graft the old orchard for improvement.
The root system is crucial for plant absorption. A healthy root system allows better absorption of water and nutrients. Some fruit trees do not bear fruit because of their roots. If you dig and look, you'll find that there are few white new roots.
3. Excessive growth of the tree causing non-fruiting
Walnut management is not about using more fertilizer, especially nitrogenous fertilizer, which promotes excessive growth. If excessive fertilization occurs, the tree tends to grow only long branches, few flowers, and thus will not bear fruit.
To solve this, one must be willing to prune the tree to make the branches sparse. The second is to find ways to control the excessive growth, such as farmers used to like to ring the bark, now for convenience, they will tie the trunk with wire (tighten it) before the walnuts bloom, which has a good effect on controlling the tree's growth, promoting flowering, and fruit setting.
4. Weak trees causing non-fruiting
Walnut trees with weak growth are also not prone to bearing fruit. We should pay attention to starting with the application of base fertilizer in autumn, focusing on strengthening the trees, and taking advantage of the green leaves to spray boron fertilizer on the leaves to promote flower bud differentiation.
In winter and spring, you can also spray boron fertilizer on dry branches to promote the healthy growth of flower buds again. For walnut trees with weak growth, both base application and foliar spraying must keep up to enhance soil fertility and root health, to make the trees strong and bearing fruit naturally becomes easy.
According to Axi's experience, foliar application of boron fertilizer is the most ideal for non-fruiting caused by poor flower bud differentiation. My orchard has experienced this, and I adopt the method of foliar application of boron fertilizer after autumn harvest, dry branch boron fertilizer spray in early spring, and foliar application of boron calcium fertilizer before flowering, resulting in abundant fruit that year.
5. Rain, snow, or frost during pollination causes non-fruiting
The flowering and pollination period of fruit trees is most afraid of encountering rain or spring frost, which can directly cause no fruit setting or little fruit setting, causing significant harm. Experienced fruit farmers will predict whether there will be spring frost based on the weather conditions throughout the winter and take preventive measures such as spraying antifreeze in advance or checking the weather forecast to assist with artificial pollination to bear more fruit.
When spring frost arrives, the most common method used by fruit farmers is to use thick smoke to combat frost, trying to protect the fruit trees during the flowering and pollination period, which also has some effect.
In summary, these are the five types of non-fruiting in walnut trees. Therefore, it can be said that the management of orchards is very flexible, and it is the best set for one's own orchard to manage according to local conditions and take corresponding measures based on the actual situation of the orchard.
The introduction above about the reasons why walnut trees don't bear walnuts and the top 5 reasons for walnuts not setting fruit provides some useful knowledge. I hope this article can be of some help to you!