1. Seed collection

Choose 30-100-year-old mother trees with straight trunks, fast growth, good development, and full seeds in the fruiting stage, and collect seeds in mid-to-late October. . The harvested fruits should be spread out and exposed to the sun. After drying, the pods are smashed or crushed, peeled, and winnowed to obtain clean seeds. The seeds are dried in the shade and bagged for dry storage.

2. Seed treatment

The seed coat of the saponaria tree is thick, and the germination is slow and irregular. Before sowing, germination treatment must be carried out. Paramjeel believes that the germination rate of saponaria seeds treated with concentrated sulfuric acid solution for 15 hours will increase. Mississippi and other places in the United States have conducted 20 methods to treat saponaria seeds. It is believed that hot water soaking or alternating hot/cold water soaking can process a larger number of seeds, but the seed germination rate is low; the seeds are scored using side or end faces and heated needles. Best results are obtained by making a hole (burn) in the seed coat. There are also reports that using 632.8mm wavelength 25mw laser to treat saponaria seeds and ear cuttings can increase the seed germination rate and ear cutting rooting rate to varying degrees. In addition, soaking in 1:4-5 alkaline water for 48 hours, and then soaking in clean water for 24 hours, the germination rate can reach 80-92. You can also put the cleanly selected seeds into the water in late autumn and early winter. After they have fully absorbed water, take them out and mix them with wet sand to store them for germination. In the next spring, after the seeds have cracked, they can be sown.

3. Seedling cultivation

The nursery site should be a place with fertile soil and convenient irrigation. Carefully prepare the land. Apply 3000 to 5000kg of organic fertilizer every 667 square meters to build a flat bed or a raised bed. . Drill sowing is used, with a spacing of 20-25cm, and 10-15 seeds are sown per meter in the sowing furrow. After sowing, the soil is covered with a thickness of 3-4cm, and the soil is always kept moist. When the seedlings are about 10cm high, thin and set the seedlings with a spacing of 10-15cm. The seedlings can reach 50-100cm in height that year. If you are cultivating 2-year-old seedlings, after the seedlings have fallen leaves in late autumn, transplant them into beds according to a row spacing of 0.5m×0.5m.

4. Artificial afforestation

The artificial afforestation of saponaria tree is carried out through direct seeding afforestation, seedling afforestation, root tiller afforestation and other methods. Forest land with less than 9,000 trees (clumps) per hectare must be replanted or newly established.

4.1 Live broadcast afforestation can be carried out in spring when soil moisture is good or after drenching rain in the rainy season. Two methods of hole sowing or broadcast seeding can be used: hole sowing has 9000-12000 holes per hectare, and the hole size is 25cm×25cm. , 8-10 seeds are sown on demand in each hole, the soil thickness is 2-3cm, the seeding rate is 225-337.5kg/h square meter, and it can usually be unearthed in about 10 days; broadcast sowing can be used in areas with exposed rocks and areas where artificial hole sowing is difficult, and the seeding rate is 450 -675kg/h square meter.

4.2 Planting seedlings for afforestation can be done in spring and autumn, and afforestation in autumn and winter is better. Before afforestation, small hole soil preparation is generally required. The size of the hole is 30cm × 30cm × 20cm, and the spacing between rows is 1.0m × 1.0-1.5m. When planting, plant deeply and firmly without exposing the roots. When there is a lot of rainfall in the rainy season, the current year's seedlings can also be used for rainy season afforestation, and the seedling height is required to be more than 20cm. Semi-lignified seedlings are used for afforestation in the mountains, and the effect is also very good. Seedling afforestation is mainly used to replant missing plants.

4.3 Root tiller and division afforestation Root tiller and division afforestation is carried out before germination in early spring or after leaf fall in autumn. In places with sufficient soil moisture, afforestation can be carried out while division is carried out. When planting, cut off the above-ground part and plant only the roots. The size of the planting hole should be suitable for the size of the root system, and the soil should be stepped firmly to ensure moisture and survival.

4.4 Regeneration and afforestation of burnt-scarred areas For burned-scarred areas where the natural forests of saponaria locust trees have been burned due to lax wild fire management in winter and spring, their growth characteristics can be used to regenerate the burnt-scarred areas. The method is to cut down the burned plants on the ground from their bases to encourage them to sprout and produce new plants. This method is simple and easy to implement, can grow forests quickly, and has obvious effects.

5. Locust tree management

Locust tree management is divided into green trees and thorn-producing trees:

5.1 Management of green trees

The sales specifications of greening trees require straight trunks, good tree shape, trunk branch points at a height of 2.2-2.5 meters, and good bark with fewer knots.

The requirements for a thorn-producing tree are that the yield of thorns must be large, and the trunk should not be too high, generally no more than 2 meters. The thorns and thorn-producing branches must be pruned every year. Only the trunk is left in autumn and winter, which is prone to knots. The appropriate management method for greening trees is that the rows are 1 meter apart and the distance between trees is 0.5 meters. Moderately dense planting can increase the air humidity in the forest, improve the local environment and reduce water evaporation. It can also inhibit the growth of weeds. The seedlings to be planted are our largest one-year seedlings, which grow quickly. If the water conditions are good, the trunk can be left higher, and no matter how long the branches are that year, do not prune them again, so that more branches can carry out photosynthesis and provide nutrients for the growth of saplings. In the second spring, prune appropriately according to the amount of germination. If the branches are too strong, you can thin them out and leave strong upward branches. Do not prune too hard at this time. You should also keep the branches and leaves for photosynthesis to facilitate the rapid growth of the second-year seedlings. . At this time, water and fertilizer need to be kept up, and weeds in the fields need to be cleared. When the saplings grow too fast, they will become skewed. At this time, the two saplings need to be brought together manually, and then separated after the lignification in autumn. After two years, the height can basically reach 2.2-2.5 meters. At this time, the trunk should be carefully determined according to the growth of the trunk, so that the green tree can reach the standard of good tree shape and straight trunk. There is another method worth mentioning here. After the green seedlings grow to five centimeters in diameter, cut off more than 2.2 meters at a time. The thorns will be all over the body and produce many thorns in one year. However, this method will Affects the beauty of the tree.

5.2 Management methods of thorn-producing trees

The first two years of management of thorn-producing trees are the same as those of greening trees. Its planting should be appropriately sparse. The initial row spacing is two meters, and the plant spacing can be 0.5 meters, 0.6 meters, or 0.7 meters. In this way, the number of plants planted per acre is 475-666. There are two planting methods after that. One is to cut off all the branches on the ground after they survive that year, and cut all the thorns and stems on these branches into sections for sale. This is also profitable, so that they will grow into shrubs every year. The yield of branches and the quality of thorns increase year by year. We have never used this method, so there is no specific data on yield, so we cannot tell you here. Another management method we commonly use is to prune off all the branches and thorns on the trunk every year. Sort out three types of thorns: large, medium and small. The thorns on the branches are mostly medium and small thorns, and the thorns on the trunk are mostly large thorns. As the tree grows, the production of large thorns increases year by year. The specific operation method is to harvest the thorns in autumn and winter. After the leaves have fallen and the thorns have turned brown-red, the branches on the trunk are first trimmed, bundled and transported to a fixed place, and then the large thorns on the trunk are harvested. concentrated. Later, labor is hired to cut the thorns from the branches, and labor wages are calculated by kilograms, which is beneficial to both parties. This method of producing thorns will produce 500-1000 grams per tree in the peak of four years.

6. Main pest control

Saponaria bean weevil: Adults are 5.5-7.5mm long, 1.5-3.5mm wide, reddish brown, with one generation occurring every year, with larvae in seeds. Overwinter inside, and the seeds will be chewed out in mid-April of the following year. After the acacia pods form, they will lay eggs on the pods. After hatching, the larvae will burrow into the seeds and cause damage.

Prevention and control methods

Soak in 90°C hot water for 20-30 seconds, or fumigate with chemicals to eliminate larvae in the seeds.

Locust tree heart-eating insects

damage the saponaria tree. The larvae overwinter by forming cocoons in fruit pods or in cracks in the bark of branches. Three generations occur every year. The first generation pupates in early April, and adults begin to emerge in early May. The second generation of adults occurs in mid-to-late June, and the third generation occurs in mid-to-late July.

Prevention and control methods

After autumn to before March of the following spring, treat the pods to prevent overwintering larvae from pupating into moths, and promptly treat the damaged pods to eliminate the larvae.