Cultivar Selection,propagation And The GAP Cultivation Techniques Of Dogwood (Cornus Officinalis) In Funiu Mountains

Dogwood (Cornus officinalis Sieb. et Zucc.) is a deciduous shrub or small tree which naturally distributes in temperate and mountainous area of subtropics zones, it mainly distributes in Qinling Mountains,Tianmu Mountains and Funiu Mountains in China. The fruit of dogwood is traditionally used as medicine, which contains physiological activity material such as dogwood saponins, saponins, polysaccharide,malic acid, tartaric acid, phenols, resin, tannins and vitamins A, C and other ingredients. Its medical function includes promottion and compensatory for stomach, liver and kidney, benifition for blood and diuresis.Dogwood production has been relied on extensive operation with almost no technological investment for a long time. The overall cultivation is in low level and low output due to no practical use of superior cultivar, scientific propagations and standard high yield silviculture technologies. Thus, the ergent issue for dogwood production is lack of criterion and planting technique, and yet strengthening silviculture technique aiming at yielding superior quality of herbial medicines. Meanwhile, with the requirements of medicine security, stability, controllability and export posed by "Good Agricultural Practice (GAP)", medicine production and management of dogwood need further considerations.Under GAP principles for the first time, we investigated the provenience resource and superior clones and types of dogwood in Funiushan Mountain area in Henan Province. We further conducted ground observations on biological performance and growth dynamic of dogwood. After that, we studied propagation techniques by using seeds, by gradting and by layering. Impacts of growth-control technologies on dogwood growth and production were investigated. The main results are as follows:1. Natural variation types of dogwood in Xixia, Neixiang and Nanzhao of Funiushan Mountain area are stone roller dates, horse teeth dates, rice dates, millet dates, August red, green dates, pearl red, stupid dates, and green hammer, etc. High-yield types include stone roller dates, horse teeth dates, green dates and August red which produce more seed and are of good medical qualities. These types are suited for extension.The types of stupid dates and green hammer naturally grow vigorously with strong resistence against disturbances and are suitable for use as a rootstock, the types of millet dates usually fruit with small seed and low production and thus is not suitable for practical applications.2. Dogwood is suited to grow on well-drained, slightly acidic or neutral deep soil. The best sites are slow leeward slopes toward the sun area and used agricultural land with 600~1000m elevations, as well as ditch bank, roadside, farmland border, and sites around the house. The sites with stone ballast soil and excess acid or alkali soil, top of mountain and sites with heavy wind should be avoided. Low-temperature damage in early spring and summer drought are the unfavorable factors for developing dogwood in Funiu Mountains.3. Mixed buds of dogwood sprout in early February; inflorescence emerg (early and late-maturing varieties differeing about 10 days) during mid-and late February; blooms from early March to mid-March; fruit occurs in early April and grow rapidly from April to June; fruit interior substantial period is from July to August the; fruit mature from late September to early November. Short fruit branch is the main bearing branch. Production of seed directly relates with longevity of fruit branches, its location with the crown and with cultivation and management.4. Before sowing, dogwood seed is better to store in pit in spring or treated immediately after pick in the autumn. Higher germination can be achieved by covering seed bed by plastic membrance, especially the blackmembrance.The highest survival rate and high quality saplings can be aceived by embedding bud grafting or by cutting access. Survival rate of sapling by embedding bud grafting from late July and mid-August is higher than that treated in spring. Highest survival was achieved by using stupid dates as rootstock, followed by using the green hammer as rootstock.As to layering breeding,stump of 0.5 ~ lcm long is remained at the base of mother plants when pruning which can promote regeneration the next year. The new regenerated branches are cut twice around position circlelly for promoting rooting. One-yeay old branches with 15 ~ 20cm long are usually buried for rooting.The cuttings of one year old tender branches are best for propagation. The cuttings are dipped into 0.05% IBA for 2 minutens and planted in medium composed by humus. 5. Arisen opening tree-shaped is the appropriate for production,it can be to achieved early and high yield. Bud thinning, flower thinning and fruit thinning technology can obviously promote average individual tree seed and bark yield, TGW. Second, the bud thinning is better than flower thinning ,flower thinning is better than fruit thinning. Inflorescence thinning approach is recommended due to time-consuming and labor intensive in terms of approaches mentioned above.6. GAP draft of dogwood development in Funiushan Mountain and standard of Funiushan Mountain dogwood cultivation and production was posed in this paper. This provides a scientific basis for stable and controllable medicinal dogwood product qualities.