How to distinguish male from female sea buckthorn

Small orange sea buckthorn berries are not only a source of nutrients, vitamins, but also an absolute decoration of the garden. When planting a bush on your site, you need to take into account that it will grow over time and form a real powerful tree. In order to get a bountiful harvest, you need to know the nuances of how to distinguish male from female sea buckthorn, how to properly care for it so that the bushes always bring a good harvest.

Sea buckthorn fruits have a high nutritional value, especially when compared to other berries and fruits in the garden. The main valuable substances in the composition are carotene and various organic acids, which are necessary for the functioning of the body. Knowing how a female shrub differs from a male one will allow gardeners to always be confident that the harvest will be.

Varieties and crop description

Each variety will differ in taste or visually, therefore, before making the final choice, you need to know the features of several species. This is required in order to choose the best option. In Russia, there are two types of breeding for this plant: European and Siberian.

Sea buckthorn tree

The varietal variety is wide - more than 70 varieties are known, among which there are large-fruited, aromatic, with a high content of vitamins, with increased productivity indicators. There are also bushes that have a reduced number of thorns, or they are absent altogether. If we consider sea buckthorn, which grows in the wild, then its berries are small, only 0.3 g in weight, cultivated - show an average of 0.5 g.

Characteristics of the varieties with the largest berries:

• Openwork - the variety has large berries, rich orange color. Fruit weight - about 1 g. The taste is pleasant, not too sweet. The plant has no thorns or thorns, the crown of the bush is spreading. In terms of ripening, it is an early variety. Demonstrates resistance to frost, cold weather and infections;
• Augustine - berries, weighing more than 1 g, the shape of the fruit is round, slightly elongated, there are a small number of thorns on the shoots. The brush with berries is large. The variety belongs to the early maturing species. Yield indicators - up to 16 kg per adult plant;
• Elizaveta - berries are large (up to 1 g), delicate taste, with a pineapple aroma. The cluster with berries has a long stem. The crown of the shrub is lush, but neat, the growth is moderate. The variety is resistant to frost, pests and diseases. Ripening time - autumn (late ripening variety).
  

  Elizaveta variety

The Essel variety is a novelty in the direction of Siberian selection. The berries are large, orange in color. The shape is oval, the mass of the berry is 1.1 g on average. Ripening time is summer. The taste is sweet, so the variety is referred to as dessert.

Gardeners know that sea buckthorn is divided into boy and girl shrubs. This means that the plant is dioecious. When thinking about planting it on your site, you need to know: one of the bushes must be female, and the other male, in order to be able to harvest. This difference is a feature that must be taken into account.

How to distinguish sea buckthorn

In order for the berries to form, it is necessary that there are bushes of each kind in the garden (pollination occurs, as a result of which the process of berry formation begins).

Pollination of female bushes is done by the wind. The flowering period of male bushes is 6-12 days, but the ovaries (and further berries) are formed exclusively on female specimens.

Female sea buckthorn

When planning a planting, it is important to take into account the peculiarity: one male must be planted on 5 female bushes. Planting can be carried out so that there is no more than 50 meters between the bushes, but the quality of pollination will be higher if the plantings are located close to each other.

Male and female bushes are very similar to each other visually. That is why it is important to know how to determine the sex of sea buckthorn. This can be done on several grounds. One of the most accurate will be the definition of flower buds. You can also see what gender the plant belongs to only when it is adult. It is best to do this in the fall, when the process of bud formation is completely completed. Also suitable is the period of early spring, when the buds begin to swell. At a young age, sea buckthorn bushes have exclusively vegetative buds - those from which each leaf is formed. If shrubs are purchased through a nursery, then it is necessary to clarify their gender. There they can create universal options - male branches are grafted onto female bushes, which allows the plant to guarantee pollination.

Sea buckthorn buckthorn (male)

For ordinary gardeners who purchased the plant outside the nursery or did not specify the gender, you need to know a number of features that will help find the answer to this question. The following parameters are distinguished:

• The tree at a young age (shrub), which is male, is larger and more powerful than those that are female;
• Adult plants, on the contrary, the female sea buckthorn bush is larger than the male one;
• Generative buds in female seedlings are small in size. An additional difference is that they are covered with two large scales. The same buds, but already in male seedlings, are almost 3 times larger, they are covered with 5-10 scales of various sizes. Visually, these buds resemble bumps.

You can determine belonging to a particular sex by flowers. The flowers of the female sea buckthorn bushes are yellow. They are collected in bunches of 3-11 flowers. In male sea buckthorn bushes, the flowers are greenish-silvery.

It is important to take into account the following nuance when determining the sex: if the plant is more than 3 years old, then before entering the fruiting period it is almost impossible to determine exactly whether this plant is male or female.

Attention should be paid to the leaves. In spring and summer, it is very easy to determine the sex by this parameter - the foliage of female sea buckthorn bushes is brighter and greener. In males, it is not bright, there is a gray tint. Also consider the size and appearance. So, the sea buckthorn boy has even leaves. The main vein, located in the center, is well pronounced and located on the outside. Women's leaves are concave in shape, if cut across, they will look like a bowl. Accordingly, on this basis, the difference is clearly visible. If you can distinguish the gender of the plants planted in the garden, then you can understand whether you need to add other plants of the opposite sex.

Sea buckthorn Adam (male)

The nuances of growing

In order to get a harvest or keep it high, you need to observe the nuances of cultivation. The features of agricultural technology in relation to garden sea buckthorn are simple, which do not require special knowledge from the gardener. The first thing to remember is that the culture, regardless of the variety, is very fond of light, therefore it grows well in areas that are not shaded by buildings or trees.

Male or female sea buckthorn should be planted in the spring when the plants have enough warmth and sunshine. There are several rules that are recommended to be followed so that plants, regardless of gender, can feel good and bear fruit successfully for several years.

If the soil is too acidic, then before planting shrubs, you need to add a little slaked lime (1 m² / 500 g). In the fall, you need to make high-quality digging. This is necessary in order to let oxygen and ensure sufficient water flow, sand or nutrients. Planting feature - the male bush is placed in the center of the site selected for sea buckthorn. Female plants should be placed around it. A row planting is also allowed with a standard distance between plants, which should be 2-2.5 meters.

To provide the required amount of nutrients, per 1 m², you will need: superphosphate - 0.25 kg, potassium salt - 45 g. him. Under the sea buckthorn bush, nitrogen-containing fertilizers should be applied with great care, they are not recommended to be applied to the planting pit, and lime should not be added to it. Such fertilizers can harm the root system, burn it. It is necessary to plant sea buckthorn in pre-prepared planting pits. Their dimensions in width, depth and height should be at least 65 cm. The ideal option for planting is seedlings that are already 2 years old.

Sea buckthorn care

Tips

If the question arises: sea buckthorn is a boy or a girl, how to recognize and distinguish shrubs, you need to know the answer to it before the plant is planted in the ground. The plant has 2 types of buds: growth buds, which are also called vegetative, and fruit (fruit-growth, generative-vegetative). If you look closely, then the bud belonging to the growth will be the same in female and male shrubs. The differences are in fruit-growth buds - male buds are noticeably larger and have several dark scales.

It is recommended to purchase sea buckthorn for your garden, which is already 3 or 4 years old, since all types of buds have already been fully formed. In young bushes, a leaf will help determine the sex. The feature that the male sea buckthorn plant has is that the leaves are larger in size.

In order not to make a mistake and purchase the necessary plant ("boy" or "girl"), it is best to visit the nursery. Here sea buckthorn of any of the varieties is propagated vegetatively, experts track the floor of the plant. Also in the nursery there are grafted seedlings (universal), so the variety of the purchased shrub will be guaranteed to bear fruit. The advantage of purchasing in a nursery is also that you can choose the desired variety, which will take into account the taste, color of the berries and even their size.

When it was possible to recognize the sex of the sea buckthorn, then you need to select and prepare a land plot for it. The soil should be well dug, watered and fertilized (no nitrogen applied). In order to guarantee abundant fruiting, you need to choose 1 male plant for 5 female bushes.

You can plant a plant yourself by taking a root offspring, but you need to know exactly the gender of the mother plant. It will be possible to check if a mistake has been made only for 2-3 seasons after planting, if the plant is young, which is why it is recommended to choose an adult plant if experience in gardening is not enough.

Sea buckthorn oil

Experts should help a person understand how to determine the sex of the selected sea buckthorn plant, since not all gardeners know the subtleties and nuances of this process.Also, in the process of determining the sex of the sea buckthorn, shoots will help - in males they are powerful, well-formed, in female shrubs - more compact.

It is important to distinguish between shrubs in order to create beautiful, in terms of landscape design, plantings that can bring a good harvest. It is guaranteed that they can be distinguished in adult plants. In the process of leaving sea buckthorn, watering and weeding will be required, since the grass takes the necessary nutrients. If they are not enough, then you will also need top dressing in spring and autumn.

Thus, the sprawling shrub with orange berries, recognizable by many, requires increased attention. Sea buckthorn and the question of how to distinguish a male from a female plant are the main points that concern a novice gardener.