There are agricultural techniques, without which the gardener’s many years of work can go down the drain. These include caring for tree bark, when the crop has already been harvested and the time to prepare for winter. After trunks and branches are manually cleaned, the bark is disinfected and all the wounds on it are repaired, whitewashing of fruit trees begins in the fall. It is in this order that they do not start whitewashing until they complete the previous three steps. Why it makes sense - read below.
Three whitewashes are held throughout the year, two of which - autumn, main (October-November), and spring, repeated (late February - early March) - are mandatory. A third whitewash of fruit trees is performed in mid-summer; to do it is not necessary, but desirable.
In autumn, you need to calculate so that you have time to
whiten the trees before the day when the daytime temperature is below zero. Whitewashing day should be dry and warm. On each tree, the trunk, lower skeletal branches (from one third to half of their length) and forks are processed.
The main purpose of the whitewashing follows from the color of the solution with which the tree trunk is covered: the whiter - the better. This is a protection of the tree from sunburn and frost freezes caused by temperature changes. Moreover, this protection is needed both for adult plants and young seedlings, especially if they are planted in the fall. Indeed, in the nursery where they were grown, you won’t get the proper light hardening. Hence the high risk of sunburn of the bark in the open garden.
It is surprising that there are still people for whom the autumn whitewashing of fruit trees and the whitewashing of the walls of the house are almost the same thing. But this is far from the case. At the gardener, the solution should be uniform, thick, similar to cream or sour cream. But it can not be applied to the trunk with a thick layer, otherwise instead of protecting the tree, its health can be impaired. For young seedlings, the concentration of lime in the solution should be half as much so as not to burn them. At the same time, it should be sufficiently waterproof, resistant to peeling and shedding from the trunk, not run off streams from it. Otherwise, you will definitely have to redo the marriage.
Whitewashing of fruit trees in the fall can be carried out both purchased and self-prepared solution. Alternatively, you can use acrylic paint snow-white.
If a gardener is used to preparing a solution each time with his own hands, this is a good recipe.
Slaked lime (2-2.5 kg),
copper sulfate (250-300 g), fatty clay (1 kg) are taken
per 10 liters of water. If desired, one or two shovels of
cow manure can be added
. Everything is thoroughly mixed until a homogeneous mass is obtained.
Whitewashing of fruit trees in autumn has a mechanical effect on the
bark of a tree , which is all the stronger the more bumpy and rougher the bark. That is why this stage of preparing the garden for winter is carried out after the previous three. Smooth bark is easier to whiten, and whitewash consumption will decrease, and time for work will be reduced. Otherwise, the unprepared bark will delaminate, crack, and lag behind the wood, the tree will become vulnerable to sunlight, freezing temperatures, pests and diseases.
After the whitewashing of fruit trees in the autumn is completed and the gardener meticulously checked the quality of the work he performed, he can safely go on vacation. The garden is protected, wintered safely and next year will meet spring in all its unique blooming beauty.