Teachers and students of the research team of the School of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture of Southwest University thinned and bagged loquat fruits in the resource garden. Photo by reporter Zheng Yu Visual Chongqing.
The loquat we eat now has about half of the pits in each fruit. If it's a seedless loquat and it's all pulp, do you expect it? A few days ago, in the Chongqing Crop Germplasm Beibei Loquat Konjac Cabbage Resource Nursery located in Xiema Street, Beibei District, He Qiao, associate professor of the School of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture of Southwest University, recommended to reporters the "baby" they were cultivating.
In fact, during the entire Spring Festival, including He Qiao, the teachers and students of the scientific research team of the School of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture of Southwest University were not idle, and there were people on duty 24 hours a day in the resource garden to guard these "treasures".
Chongqing Crop Germplasm Beibei Loquat Konjac Cabbage Resource Nursery is jointly managed by the College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture of Southwest University and Chongqing Loquat Engineering Technology Research Center.
In the 90s of the last century, Liang Guolu, a researcher at Southwest University, led the loquat germplasm resource utilization and innovation team of the School of Art and Landscape Architecture of the campus to collect loquat germplasm resources from home and abroad, and obtained more than 500 germplasms with different ploidy through screening natural polyploidy and hybrid breeding.
Among the 10 new varieties of loquat approved by relevant state departments, 5 are new seedless varieties, such as 'Seedless Fuzao', 'Seedless Zaoyu', 'Huayu Seedless No. 1', etc. He Qiao is quite proud of this.
What is the difference between a nucleated and a non-nuclear loquat? What is the difference between the same seedless variety?
The difference is huge. He Qiao said that the experience of eating nucleated loquat and seedless loquat is completely different: most of the nucleus with a large core and little flesh; After the seedless loquat is peeled, it is all pulp.
However, the cultivation and selection of high-quality seedless loquat varieties is not an overnight task.
This work has been carried out by the loquat germplasm resource utilization and innovation team of the School of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture of Southwest University for more than 20 years.
There are no seeds in the seedless loquat fruit, and the seeds are the main hormones necessary for fruit enlargement, so seedless loquat fruit preservation has become a particularly important work. To do a good job of fruit preservation, it is important to apply the fruit preservative according to the season, and to carry out fruit thinning and bagging.
There is a mantra for loquat sparse fruits: 'leave two or three large fruits, four or five six medium fruits, and ten small fruits.' 'To produce high-quality fruits, it is necessary to manually thin the fruits. He Qiao said.
Fruit thinning is mainly to remove fruits with stunted growth, frozen fruits, deformed fruits and pests and diseases. Fruit bagging can effectively prevent peel abrasion, reduce fruit cracking, fruit rust, sunburn, reduce bird pests and insect pests, and reduce pesticide residues.
At the scene, He Qiao taught. He reminded the students that after the fruit thinning is completed, it is necessary to spray fungicides and insecticides once, and then carry out the bagging operation, "first open the fruit bag, put all the fruits into the paper bag, so that the young fruits are in the fruit bag**, and then tie the bag mouth with bundled silk." ”
The reporter noticed that the bagging operation of teachers and students was rigorous and standardized: the bagging sequence was first up and then down, first inside and then outside; When the silk is tied, the thread is not wrapped around the stalk to avoid damage to the stalk.
He Qiao told reporters that at present, the breeding of seedless loquat varieties has reached the pilot stage, "it is expected that there will be 3-5 years, with the optimization and demonstration of relevant cultivation management technology, seedless loquat will be officially launched." ”