Red Beauty is a citrus variety bred in Japan, also known as Ehime 28. The female parent is Nanxiang and the male parent is Amakusa. It is a tangerine-orange hybrid variety. The fruit surface is rich orange, the pulp is polarized residue, high in sugar and of high quality, and has a sweet orange-like aroma. It is known as the noble citrus.
Get to know Red Beauty
Variety characteristics
Morphological characteristics: Medium growth potential, round-headed crown, leggy branches are prone to occur in the seedling stage and early stage of high grafting. The branches are drooping. There are long branch thorns between the nodes of the leggy branches, which gradually tend to decrease as the tree ages. The spring leaves are spindle-shaped, slightly smaller, and the wing leaves are wedge-shaped and narrow. The leaves in summer and autumn are quite large. There is almost no issue with fruiting every other year and the fruit consistency is good.
Phenological period: Spring shoots occur from February to April, summer shoots occur from May to July, and autumn shoots occur in August.
Fruiting habits: The first flowering period is in mid-March, the peak flowering period is in early to mid-April, the first physiological fruit drop begins in late April, and the second physiological fruit drop begins in mid-to-late May. The fruit expansion period is from June to September, and the fruits begin to mature in late November.
Fruit shape: The fruit is oblate and spherical, with an average fruit weight of 156 grams. The peel is rich orange, relatively smooth, thin and soft, and is closely connected to the white cortex. It is slightly difficult to peel. The flesh is orange-yellow, soft and juicy, has a good flavor and is broken into slag.
Main advantages
Early maturity and high price: Red Beauty matures in late November and is fully mature in early December. It can be harvested in January of the following year under facility cultivation. Most of them are high-end gifts. fruit. Since there are currently few plantings and the number of fruits produced is limited, demand exceeds supply. The sales price reached 40 yuan/catty in 2014, 30 yuan/catty in 2015, and reached 50 yuan/catty in the later period. In 2016, with the expansion of planting area, sales The price has dropped, but high-quality fruits can still be sold for 30 yuan/jin.
Excellent fruit: orange flesh, very fine and tender flesh, tastes like jelly, juicy and sweet, good quality, soluble solids content 12%, invert sugar content 9.33%, reducing sugar content 5.16%, The titratable acid content is 0.93%, the vitamin C content is 315 mg/L, the edible rate is 86.83%, and the juice yield is 56.16%.
The name is very beautiful: Mr. Xu Jianguo, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Citrus Research Institute, translated this variety as "Red Beauty", as if it was given vitality instantly. Like a graceful girl in red, she is enthusiastic and unrestrained, teasing your taste buds with every move and every move she makes. It is difficult to become an Internet celebrity!
Some shortcomings
① It has weak cold resistance and is prone to frost damage, and during summer drought, it is easy for leaves to lose water and droop.
②After the fruit is completely colored, the pericarp around the fruit stem ages and is prone to small ring-shaped cracks. This phenomenon can easily lead to water rot, peel damage, and reduced marketability.
③ Susceptible to sand skin disease, brown spot disease, canker disease, and thorns. Like tangerines, they are also susceptible to damage such as flower skin, fruit drop, fruit cracking, fruit fly, and fruit-sucking armyworm.
Key points of red beauty cultivation
Garden selection
You should choose a warm planting site with fertile soil and good drainage and irrigation. The frost resistance of Red Beauty is slightly worse than that of Wenzhou Satsuma Mandarin, and it has higher requirements for heat, light, and fertilizer. Therefore, it should be planted in a garden with no strong wind in winter, warm and sunny, sufficient light, fertile soil, deep soil layer, and high organic matter content. .
Since Red Beauty is more sensitive to soil moisture content, it is necessary to choose a location with convenient drainage and irrigation for planting, and do a good job of moisture control according to the actual situation. In order to control pests and diseases and improve fruit quality, greenhouse rain-shelter cultivation mode can be considered.
Fertilizer and water management
Red Beauty has a high demand for fertilizer and water, so it is necessary to reasonably strengthen fertilizer and water management and appropriately increase the total amount of fertilizer applied throughout the year.
Small trees are similar to other citrus varieties. They mainly use nitrogen fertilizer and organic fertilizer. The principle is to apply thin fertilizer frequently to cultivate good and high-yielding trees.
The trees that are put into production are mainly fertilized four times a year, namely base fertilizer, germination fertilizer, fruit strengthening fertilizer and fruit picking fertilizer.
Basic fertilizer: Mainly long-lasting organic fertilizer, combined with balanced Trim compound fertilizer and medium element calcium and magnesium fertilizer, combined with deep plowing and soil modification.
Grugation fertilizer: Apply before the spring shoots sprout, apply liquid seedling fertilizer in Trim's macroelement water-soluble fertilizer to each tree to awaken the root system and promote the growth of new shoots.
Fruit strengthening fertilizer: In mid-to-early July, base application of organic fertilizer + balanced compound fertilizer + medium element calcium and magnesium fertilizer. Top dressing can be applied with a large amount of element water-soluble fertilizer (liquid fruit expanding fertilizer) to achieve the desired effect. The purpose is to strengthen fruits, promote shoots and nourish roots.
Fruit harvesting fertilizer: Apply 10 to 15 days before fruit harvesting. Quick-acting water-soluble fertilizers are mainly used. A large number of element water-soluble fertilizers (general-purpose fertilizers) are recommended here to quickly restore tree vigor.
In addition, foliage topdressing should be used to ensure the nutrient supply of citrus during each critical growth period, such as applying boron fertilizer during the flowering period, spraying Trim Mineral Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate during the fruit preservation period, and spraying Trim Mineral Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate during the fruit expansion period. Calcium fertilizer, etc., potassium dihydrogen phosphate in the mature stage of shoots, etc.
Pruning and shaping
Adopt open-shaped or round-shaped shaping. In the sapling stage, the main tasks are to expand the crown, cultivate the backbone branches, and increase the leaves of the crown branches and tips.
One year after planting, the hair will be sprouted several times in spring, summer and autumn to speed up crown formation. Trees that are initially put into production should be pruned in time to cultivate effective fruit-bearing branch groups and be appropriately short. Cut off the extension branches of the main branches and sub-main branches to maintain a certain amount of growth and tree vigor.
Adult fruit-bearing trees should be pruned mainly in spring and should be pruned throughout the year. In spring, trees with too many main branches and too dense branches should be pruned with skylights open in time. to improve lighting conditions.
For high-grafted trees, the crown should be cultivated as soon as possible in the year of high-grafting and the second year, and the backbone branches with uniform growth and good distribution should be selected as the main branches. The backbone branches with good distribution should be cultivated as the main branches. Orange trees that retain their fruits until February of the following year under facility cultivation can bear fruit every other year.
Flower and Fruit Management
Red Beauty has a high fruit setting rate. In addition to pruning to adjust the number of fruits, it is also necessary to thin flowers and fruits in a timely manner to improve quality and maintain robustness. tree vigor to achieve the goal of high and stable yields.
Flower thinning: carried out during the budding to flowering stages, mainly to thin out leafless inflorescences on thin and weak branches.
Fruit thinning: It can be carried out in two steps. The first time is in late June to remove diseased and insect-infected fruits, deformed fruits, damaged fruits and excessive and dense fruits in the crown. The second time is from August to September to remove cracked fruits, diseased fruits, small fruits and tip fruits.
Bagging: From August to October, bagging the remaining fruits can effectively prevent damage by diseases and insect pests. Before bagging, pest control must be carried out. The bagging material is preferably white transparent paper bags, and the bag mouth should be tied tightly when bagging. Remove the bagging 10 days before harvesting to facilitate coloring and improve marketability.
Disease and Pest Control
Citrus fruit has many diseases and insect pests, so when controlling, we should pay attention to the principle of giving priority to prevention and combining prevention and control. First, we must strengthen cultivation and management to improve tree resistance. Secondly, we must pay close attention to the garden cleaning work in winter to reduce the base of pests and diseases. When using chemicals, try to use high-efficiency and low-toxic ones, and use them alternately to protect natural enemies.