A new large fruit walnut cultivar ‘Zhonghexiang’

Abstract: ‘Zhonghexiang’is a new large fruit and early fruiting walnut cultivar bred from outstandingwalnut landraces in Wensu County, Aksu area, Xinjiang, through good strain selection and top grafting ob⁃servation for thirty-five years. It has the potential character of very strong tree vigor and sturdy branches.Besides, it has the appearance of upright tree body, strong branches, and crown round head in the naturalgrowth. The bearing branch rate of medium and short fruiting branches accounted for 78.6%. One year oldbranches of‘Zhonghexiang’are gray-green. The fruiting branches are stout and short internodes of 3.67cm long. Mixed bud is round, hypertrophy plump, and no buds seat. Perennial branches are gray-brownand small skin. The average number of fruiting shoot was 14.2 on the bearing basal shoot, with the lengthof 30.6 cm and the thickness of 3.47 cm. The average length of the branch was 16.1 cm, the thickness was1.40 cm, and the average fruit set was 1.89. Each female inflorescence has 2 to 3 piece of flowers, andfruit rate is about 70%. There is single or double fruit in a single branch. It has larger apex leaves, darkgreen and long oval, with average length of 21.83 cm and width 11.7 cm. Another, there is also 5 to 9 leaflets, long oval. It has entire margin leaf, obtuse apex, and broadly wedge leaf base. The height of the fiveyear old tree is 4.2 m, the crown width is 7.0 m. The average fruiting number is 311, and the yield per muis 1 555.2 kg. It is female first type, with more male flower. The average weight of green fruit is 89.3grams, average of three-path is 5.63 cm, and average thickness of green skin is 7.31 mm. The tree performance is half opening. The cultivar mainly bore on the moderate and short fruit spur. The female flowersopen firstly. In Gongyi city, the stage in germination is in mid to late of March, and female flowers stage inthe middle of April. The mature period is early-to-mid of September. The fruit shape is oval. The shellthickness is 1.16 mm. Kernel rate reached to 57.8%. Besides, it has a full kernel, fragrant flavor and goodquality. It is very suitable for processing. The average amount of single plant is 311 after 5 years, then theaverage weight of dried fruit is 6.41 kg, so the area yield is up to 358.96 kg The best choice is deep andfertility soil, with good irrigation and drainage conditions of a sandy loam land for the construction of theorchard, the pH is preferably between 6.5 and 7.5. If you want to build a new garden in the mountain, itwould be better to choose the sun or semi-sunny slope in the middle and lower abdomen, and the gentleslopes below to 10 degrees as well. Built gardens on the ground, it would be better to choose leeward sunny, with underground water level of about 2 meters below and drainage good place. When selecting the garden, it is the best to avoid the choice of continuous cropping. If you have to plant in the cropping, youshould avoid the original tree points and apply more organic fertilizer.